Dangerous Tenant
by SPG inc
Summary: Resident Evil/Dr Who x-over. The Survivors are ready to challenge Albert Wesker, but even with arrival of a man called 'The Doctor' and a woman called Donna, can they save the world from the T-Virus?
1. Chapter 1

Message sent: 15 July 2008- 11:24

Message received: 15 July 2008- 11:25

From: Director A. Wesker, White Umbrella HQ, Greenland facility

To: International Umbrella Defence & Security dep. chief Code name: Hunk, White Umbrella military training complex, Israel

Message reads: (Encrypted) The situation has become more complicated. American military intelligence and STRATCOM's Anti-Umbrella P.I.T have managed to confirm that Umbrella has been revived and have commenced 'Operation Unit' to erase its presence and seize all documents and samples from our viral weaponry research. Fortunately, they have no leads on where we have set up our operations, and Project Union is proceeding as planned and should be ready by the end of the month. However, the possibility that the Survivors may have a lead on us cannot be ignored. As a precaution, your orders are to be prepared to evacuate yourself and all senior staff members at a moments notice and to destroy all information you have on Project Union. The last remaining files on our latest project will be well protected in our Greenland facility once the security is upgraded to biohazard level. If an attack is made against any of our facilities, security personnel are authorise to kill all intruders on sight, though a substantial bonus is available if any of the Survivors are taken alive.

* * *

Message sent: 24 July 2008- 15:25

Message received: 24 July 2008- 15:30

From: Colonel James Simmons, CIA Sensitive Operations Division

To: Recipients address unrecorded

Message reads: (Encrypted) Sir, I am pleased to report that phase one of Operation Unit is well under way. I can confidently confirm that the few Umbrella agents that successfully infiltrated our branch and the Anti-Umbrella Pursuit Investigation Team have been apprehended and are under interrogation, though we cannot guarantee the same for the rest of the CIA, on account of the fact that our mission requires we are to act as though unsanctioned by any official government authority, and therefore our ability to investigate other departments is extremely limited.

We still have no leads on where Umbrella has set up their new operations or what sort of viral weapons they have access to. To this end, I have dispatched special agent Leon Kennedy to contact and infiltrate the vigilante group known as 'The Survivors' in the hope that they may have information on Umbrella activities that were not recovered when Umbrella inc. was officially dissolved. However, since agent Kennedy has maintained close ties to members of the Survivors, there are concerns that he may allow them to make the first move and help them to destroy all research rather than allow us to recover it. Therefore, we shall continue to carry out alternative investigations in regards to discovering Umbrella's activities.

* * *

July 31st

2008

23:58

Chris Redfield cursed himself. He knew the mission was a bad idea. He knew that before they arrived, before they'd even made that journey from Canada, even when they'd first been planning the expedition.

The plan had been simple enough. When Leon had caught up with Claire saying he wanted to help the remaining STARS members destroy Umbrella for good, Chris had been distrustful. But the guy had earned his place among 'The Survivors' (as they had dubbed themselves) when he'd provided them with the final clue they needed to catch up with Albert Wesker.

On his mission to save the daughter of the U.S. president from some religious fanatic group, Leon had met a woman known as Ada Wong; a bounty hunter who until recently had been working for Wesker, but had disappeared, and apparently had been working for a unknown party all the time. Leon explained that at one point during his mission the female agent had been captured and had dropped her communicator. When Leon had discovered the recorded messages showing Wesker was alive and had revived Umbrella, he'd kept it rather than turn it over to the government. After a lot of tedious computer work trying to trace the source of the messages along with a few transmissions Chris had recorded from Wesker's sub after his escape from the Antarctic Umbrella base, the Survivors had finally tracked Wesker's activities to Greenland.

Not long after the destruction of Racoon City a privately funded environmental research base had been built on the western coast of Greenland. Although a lot of construction work seemed to have gone on there, the base itself seemed very small, and there was always plane and helicopter activity to and from there.

Convinced that this was another underground laboratory, the plan had been to reach the base by flying a light aircraft from Yellowknife airport, destroy the whole place with its own self destruct system (or a few well placed black market demolition explosives), settle the score with Wesker, escape in one of the planes at the base, then have Leon contact his superiors to clean up.

The plan had gone wrong from the beginning. For a start there were too few of them. A few months back the Survivors had been caught in a fire-fight after they went to investigate an abandoned Umbrella office building for clues and came face to face with a corporate strike team after the same thing. The resulting battle had left Barry Burton with a bad gunshot wound, and although he'd live there was no way he'd take part in any more missions. It was only luck that he'd recovered enough to give Chris the details of his most reliable weapons contacts. Former Umbrella soldier Carlos Oliveira had also provided useful contacts, as well as invaluable computer expertise. However, whether by bad luck or because Wesker found out the Spaniard was helping his most hated enemies, the FBI had a tip off that Carlos was, contrary to their records, very much alive, and Carlos had vanished rather than risk being arrested for various war crimes.

So the Survivors now consisted of Chris Redfield, his sister Claire, Jill Valentine, Rebecca Chambers and Leon S. Kennedy. All of them were well armed but only Claire and Jill had any body armour (Chris insisted that Claire take one or be left behind, and Leon said he was well trained enough that he wouldn't need any. Chris decided Jill was more likely to find herself in the heart of battle than Rebecca so he let her take the second kevlar vest). It was a big risk to rely on escaping in one of the planes at the base, but the plane they had only had enough fuel to make the trip there. Without a bigger plane it was their only option.

When they'd finely reached the base it seemed to be deserted. After a quick search they found a way in through a wide cargo ramp in one of the buildings. Chris, Claire, Jill and Leon went down to investigate while Rebecca was nominated to stay up top and guard the entrance with the help of a helicopter mounted chain gun. They thought it was a blessing there were no guards about. Then they found out why.

After combing their way through three floors of recently used but unoccupied barracks they came to the fourth floor. No sooner had Jill stepped out of the stairwell than it was sealed off by a metal door.

"_Well, well. Look what we have here_," a voice spoke softly from hidden speakers in the ceiling; a deep, cold and disturbingly off hand voice. A voice that the four people easily recognised.

"Wesker!" Chris growled in response.

"_Correct! And I see you've bought the infamous Survivors with you. Almost reminds of the old STARS team, though I doubt they're up to the same standards as when I was in charge._"

"Why don't come out here and find out!" Jill shouted, brandishing her AK-47 as though Wesker might appear out of the wall (something which wasn't entirely out of the question).

"_No, I think the fight would be depressingly short if I faced you now. I think it would be far more interesting if I let security take care of you._" somewhere in the hallway ahead a door opened "_If any of you live long enough I might just tell you what I've been planning all this time; something to take away any hope you have just before the end_."

That had been ten minutes ago. Since then the survivors had fought a running battle against a dozen flesh eating zombies. Wesker hadn't been joking when he said they were security. All of the unfortunate T-virus victims were dressed in bulletproof armour and steel helmets. The Survivors had only managed to escape by heading down to the next floor and blowing up the corridor roof with a demolition charge.

Now the only way to escape was to move on and hope there was another way back up which wasn't blocked off. Chris felt like kicking himself. Once again he and his friends were caught in a death-trap, surrounded by undead monstrosities and watched by a lunatic who had control of the entire complex. He was back in the world of survival horror.

"Damn it! That was too close!" Jill exclaimed once the dust had settled.

Chris forced himself to think straight. The others were in just as much danger as he was, and he had decided long ago it was his responsibility to see they got out of this alive. Chris never backed down from responsibility.

"It'll hold them." Chris looked to Claire and Leon. "You two ok?"

"We're fine." Claire got to her feet with a hand from Leon and looked back the way they'd come. Chris Redfield's red haired younger sister shared few similarities with her brother, but they shared the same personality. Faced with the dire situation, Claire put a brave face on rather than let slip she was worried; just like Chris was doing at the same moment.

"How're we going to get out again?" she asked with a steady voice and fearful eyes.

Again, Chris cursed himself. He should have left Claire behind and ignored her demands to let her take part in the raid. Now her life was in more danger than anticipated, and it was his fault.

"Don't worry." he said, covering up his fear more effectively with so many years of practice. "They'll be another way up; if not stairs then some sort of cargo elevator. Our first priority is to secure our retreat before we go any deeper. Let's move out."

They set off again, keeping a careful eye out for anything undead. After only a few minutes the corridor opened out into a large cavern like chamber filled with steel pillars, girders and numerous metal walkways.

"_Ah!_" Wesker's voice came from speakers bolted to the walls. "_You've found your way to the foundation supports. Impressive, but a shame you don't appear to have enough explosives to cause any significant damage._"

Chris hated to admit that Wesker was right, but if that whole room, maybe even the whole floor, was made to keep the base stable then the seven bricks of C4 explosives they had would be wasted.

"_While you're there, perhaps you'd like meet some of my new creations?"_

A scratching sound caught everyone's attention. They swung their weapons in the general direction of the noise and squinted into the darkness. Then was a rhythmic clicking, and a shape began to emerge from the shadows. It was human shaped, but seemed bulky round the shoulders, as though it were hunched. It's long, muscular arms practically dragged on the floor and with its every step the subtle little 'click' echoed in the chamber. When it finally came into view they'd all guessed what it was, but that didn't mean they were prepared for it.

A hunter. Rubbery green skin, body like a gorilla, claws on its feet so long they tapped against the floor with every step, large yellow eyes with a crazed look. Its movement was slow and delicate, its limbs were strong and agile and its head was overly wide with a flat nose and a mouth filled with jagged teeth.

Chris dropped his kalashnikov and reached for the 357. magnum gifted to him by Barry. The hunter reacted to the movement and dived forward, knocking Chris down and slicing his arm so that the revolver fell away. Chris yelled in pain, while the others quickly darted away, trying get away from the monster and find a place to shoot at it without hitting anyone else.

Claire tried to save her brother by rushing in close with her sub-machine gun, but the creature struck out and cut her armour in half, forcing her to retreat. The hunter turned its attention to Chris who was trapped between its legs. It raised one of its wide hands and extended its claws to their full ten inches, leering down as it prepared to strike.

"NO!" Jill shrieked as she dived to where the monster prepared to strike. Chris' eyes widened and braced himself for death

But it didn't come.

The hunter lowered its hand unexpectedly and roared down at Chris with its horrible gasping voice. Then Jill stitched its chest with a volley of gunfire, followed by the _boom_ of a shotgun from Leon's direction. The hunter fell away with its head a pulpy mess.

"Chris! Thank God you're alright!" Jill exclaimed as she knelt next to her friend to assess his injury.

"I'll say," Leon agreed as he inspected the first hunter he'd ever seen. "If he hadn't had held back at the last moment you'd be nothing but a stain by now."

"Held back?" Chris looked up and frowned with uncertainty. "Your right Leon; that could have killed me. So why didn't it?"

"_Very good. I see you still have the mind of a police officer_." Wesker's disembodied voice gloated from all around. "_The reason that hunter stopped was because I told it to. My research has led to a massive leap in B.O.W inhibitors. Inhibitors which can't be burnt off so easily, and allows for more complex instructions. For example, the nineteen remaining hunters on that floor would be spread out through the other rooms if left to their own devices. But instead I've ordered them gather into a pack, somewhere... nearby_."

Everyone turned away from whatever speaker they'd been listening to and looked around. It didn't take long to spot them.

The rafters above were thick with green skin and snarling jaws. Easily as many as Wesker had said, they stared down at their prey, eyes glowing a dull yellow in the dark. They twitched as though eager to attack, yet they stayed put and just watched.

Chris felt his blood run cold. The whole thing had been such a bad idea, and now the people he cared about were going to pay the price. Chris honestly cared little about what would happen to him; all his life he'd been too busy worrying about others. He glanced at the people with him.

Jill. The woman he'd shared a close friendship with for many years, and may have shared something more if circumstances had allowed it. She didn't deserve to die at the hands of these monsters, having faced so many of them. She should have been allowed to turn her back on the whole wretched case and live her life in peace, but he knew she'd never forget the horrors she'd experienced, just like himself.

Then there was Claire, his younger sister. Deep down, Chris knew that he'd never have been able to stop her from coming with them; not with her brother going up against Wesker with just three other people, and the possibility that Steve Burnside might still be alive. Nevertheless, Chris would never forgive himself for what was about to happen to her (not that he was likely to live long enough to regret it). After everything he'd done to try and take care of her, she was going to die so young.

And Leon. Chris didn't know him too well, but Leon had helped Claire to escape Racoon City, and had been first to find out when she was taken to Rockfort island, and had taken a big risk by giving the Survivors a chance to destroy the T-virus research rather than follow orders and allow the government to capture it. And having taken that risk he was now going to lose his life because Chris hadn't thought things through properly.

And finally Rebecca, waiting for them above ground. The youngest member of the team; Chris had been glad when he'd convinced her to stay behind after Claire point blank refused. Now it made no difference. The monsters under Wesker's control would find her too, and before the end of the day all of them would either be dead or better off dead.

"_Well Survivors,_" the speakers blurted out "_I'd hoped you wouldn't die so quickly, but I'm sure experimenting with your corpses will give me some small entertainment. Goodbye._"

The hunters moved, filling the room with their chirping screams. Again Wesker had been truthful when he'd explained the hunter's ability to follow order. Instead of dropping down directly into the line of fire, they scrambled through the forest of girders, making themselves almost impossible to target. The Survivors stood back to back, pointing their weapons at the shapes which appeared and vanished from their line of sight. Then they stopped, just over the heads of the four vigilantes, who crouched down and pointed their guns straight up.

Everyone in the room stopped dead, the hunters staying perfectly still, and the humans afraid to do anything in case they provoked a reaction. Chris could feel Jill's back to his. He could feel a slight tremble, but wasn't sure if it was her or him. Claire was to his right, so scared stiff she was holding her breath. Leon to his left, obviously trying to keep his breathing steady. The hunters, however, weren't moving at all. For a moment, Chris assumed this was some sick mind game Wesker had thought of, but the man's voice came over the speakers suddenly.

"_What?_" The word sounded surprised, and was spoken quietly as though Wesker were speaking to himself. Then the sound of static coming the speakers faded away, indicating they'd been turned off. Apparently something had gone wrong.

Chris was just considering if they should try and make a run for it, when suddenly the hunters began roaring and scattered, disappearing higher into the darkness.

Everyone simply stared in confusion and gradually lowered their weapons.

"What was that?" Claire whispered in the ominous silence that followed the event.

"Looked as though something scared them off." Leon replied in an equally hushed tone.

Chris found it had to believe that a hunter could even feel fear, but there was no explanation for what had just happened. Then, all of a sudden, he sensed something. He hadn't heard or seen anything suspicious, but he suddenly had a strange feeling, as though he could instinctively feel there was something wrong. As he looked around his eyes fell upon a nearby corridor. There wasn't a door; it was just a short passageway leading to what appeared to be a disused storeroom. What had caught the marksman's eyes were two pieces of paper. They were on the floor of the passageway, and they were moving, being blown out of the storeroom into the huge cavern. The others turned to look when they felt the wind coming from nowhere, but Chris didn't notice because now he could hear something.

It wasn't a hunter. In fact it was defiantly wasn't anything of flesh and blood, and yet it was howling.

A howl was the only way to describe the noise that was coming from within the storeroom. A constant, rising and falling sound which echoed as though it were coming from a pit. Then the room beyond was tinged with a blue light which flashed one moment and vanished the next. The sound quickly became louder until it echoed throughout the cavern, wildly distorted.

And then it all stopped, just like that.

Another ominous silence. The Survivors stared at the passageway, unsure what to do or say. Chris was the first to react, crouching down to pick up his fallen assault rifle. Whatever was in that room, he knew it would be trouble.


	2. Chapter 2

David Tennant as 'The Doctor'

Catherine Tate as Donna Noble

**DOCTOR·WHO**

Dangerous Tenant

Doctor Who rights reserved to BBC et al.

Resident Evil rights reserved to Capcom.

* * *

TARDIS log- 900+

Non-encrypted- if you've managed to get hold of this you deserve to know what it says. But beware; eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves :P

- Just left Aurora city on planet Subtle III, year 11,002. Quite nice except for a strange going on with a piece of tarmac. Fortunately Donna intervened with her portable hairdryer, so the hospital can take care of it. I've shown Donna a lot of sights from space recently, but I think it's about time we started visiting places again. However, at the moment we have a slight problem.

* * *

"Choose..." he said.

"No, I can't." the female complained back.

"Come on, just choose." the creature said again in playful fashion, ignoring the other person's frustration.

"I don't want to go."

"Just pick."

"I don't even like the Eurovision song contest."

The person known as 'The Doctor' ran a hand through his spiky brown hair and sighed. Without doubt his current human companion was the most argumentative he'd ever had, having been totally uncooporative and uncompromising for the last ten minutes. But that wouldn't stop him from enjoying a live performance of songs from about forty countries; not now he was in the mood.

"Just one. Two thousand and seven is a good year."

Donna raised her eyes. The red haired Londoner was glad the Doctor was back to his old self. Two weeks ago the Doctor had seen his clone daughter Jenny die to save his life. The last remaining Time Lord had concealed his grief with a lot of frowning and moments of subdued silence, but since then he'd been reluctant to land anywhere, and although in the meantime they'd seen some stunning spectacles, they'd only actually left the TARDIS about three times and Donna felt they really needed to get back in touch with civilisation. The Eurovision song contest, however, was not what she had hoped for.

"Two thousand and seven? That's the year when that loony from Ukraine was in it."

"Be fair Donna; on his home world that sort of stuff is classical."

"Whatever..."

Donna strode round the huge circular console in the centre of the impossibly large room until she came to a particular monitor.

"I want to go somewhere sunny." she said as watched the time vortex tunnel rush by outside. "Someone really bright. I'm absolutely sick of the lighting in here. What about that place where you said all the land is in the sky?"

The last Time Lord's boyish smile turned into a slight frown. The lights were the same as a clear day on his home world Gallifrey, and since the planets destruction he'd grown quite attached to them. However, Donna usually said annoying things without thinking so he let it pass.

He casually paced over and stood next to her. Together they were polar opposites. The Doctor- tall, skinny, not even human; a Time Lord with a mind that could see the entire universe in a single glance. And Donna Noble- a short, well built human with a demanding personality and a BIG attitude. For all his genius the Doctor wondered how they got on so well.

"That's Arcadia. But it's not a good idea to go there Donna; why don't we just take a mystery tour."

"I've been on your mystery tours before, and they never turn out well." Donna smirked as she tapped the monitor to clear some interference. The Doctor leaned forward so he could get a better look.

"Well, it looks like we're going on a mystery tour. Whether you want to or not."

Donna looked round at the serious tone the Doctor had suddenly used.

"What d'you mean?" she asked, before looking back at the computer screen and seeing exactly what he meant.

The few dark green and black dots she'd taken for static a moment ago had now grown into huge streaks that swirled through the time vortex like some repulsive infection.

"Void stuff." the Doctor answered as Donna opened her mouth to ask. "Particles of nothing from the space between dimensions. And it looks like it's leaked into our reality."

The Doctor began racing round the computer, flicking switches and pushing buttons seemingly at random. Donna took a firm hold of a hand rail and steadied herself, knowing better than to risk moving around the TARDIS when there was a problem.

"What does that mean then?"

"Well, if we're lucky, it's just a slight glitch," he pulled a green lever "and all I have to do," he pushed a button, which didn't seem to do anything "is push that button and everything will be fine."

"And if we're not lucky?" Donna asked.

The Doctor grabbed another hand rail and braced himself against the computer.

"Then we're going to fall into another dimension."

"Well what's that m-" the rest of Donna's question was drowned out by an explosive blast from outside. The computer burst with a vicious shower of sparks, then the lights, coloured like the Gallifreian sky which Donna was so fed up of, went out, followed by the light coming from the centre column of the computer. And then the TARDIS was engulfed by a roaring, thundering chaos from outside. Donna and the Doctor could do nothing except hold on while their space/time travelling ship was buffered and tossed around by the storm. Donna swore she could feel the walls of the TARDIS buckling under the pressure.

As the seconds of confusion began to blend into minutes the shaking began to calm slightly, enough to allow the Doctor to reach out for the nearest control panel and fiddle with a few switches.

The column rising out of the middle of the computer flickered back into life for a moment and the machine inside began pumping up and down, giving out the characteristic groaning sound that the Doctor described as 'the sound of the universe'. As the TARDIS groaned, the roaring outside quietened, and in just few seconds it was all over. The column went out again.

Donna stood in the darkness, unable to see and only hearing her own breathing. She wondered if she was dead. Maybe the TARDIS had broken and she was falling through some strange hole in space. All in all, things didn't look good.

Then there was a light in front of her. Now she was sure she was dead.

"Where am I?" she asked herself quietly.

"I don't know." came the Doctor's sullen reply.

Donna gasped in relief, then stormed over and pushed the torch aside.

"You idiot! Why are you standing there and staying quite like that? I thought I was dead!"

"The TARDIS is."

She looked back at the computer. The was no sign of power. Donna had a tendency to miss important things, but now she'd noticed, it was quite shocking. 'Dead' was actually quite an appropriate way to describe it. Saying that the power had been cut off wasn't enough to describe silence and darkness that had replaced the brightly lit, softly humming, lively atmosphere of the TARDIS.

"How did it happen?" Donna asked.

"We fell through a gap in reality." the Doctor replied as though he were in a trance "We're cut off from the Time Vortex. Stranded in an alternate existence, or in a nowhere place."

"But how did we get here, wherever we are?" Donna glanced back at the computer, then added in a worried voice "Can we get back?"

"Holes in reality are unpredictable." the Doctor continued speaking softly, eyes transfixed on the heart of the TARDIS. "It could be too late. May have already sealed, or moved elsewhere. Without the power there's no way of tellin-"

"Doctor, this isn't the time for twenty questions. Would you please just explain to me what's going on?"

Donna's small outburst seemed to 'break the ice' of the situation. The Doctor jumped slightly and his face lost the expression of horrified awe.

"Yeah, sorry Donna." he looked at her this time. "First of all you understand the idea of parallel worlds, right?"

"You mean, like, where everything's the same but some things are different."

"That's right. Well it looks like there was hole in our world and we've fallen right down it. That's why we've lost power; different world, different time vortex, incompatible power source. The emergency engine I put in prevented us from crashing, but all the same we're lucky to be alive at all. Different laws of physics could have ripped us apart. Now that we're here though we have to leave."

"How can we leave if there's no power?"

"I've already dealt with that. I had the same problem the last time I crashed in a parallel world, so now I always keep one of these with me." The Doctor began rummaging though one of his pockets which, like the TARDIS, was much bigger on the inside. In spite of the situation, the Doctor and Donna could help stopping to smirk at each other.

"I've warned you about before. You make time travelling look like Mary Poppins."

"What's wrong with that?" the Doctor pretended to look confused. "Looks like a good idea to me. Travel the world with a lamp in your bag. Besides, I thought of it first- they stole the idea. Ah, here it is."

From his impossibly large pocket, the Doctor produced what looked like a small diamond.

"A bio-organic power cell, grown from the dust of Gallifrey. It can give us enough power to get us home but it's not charged yet. Just needs a little encouragement." he looked as though he were going to say more, but then seemed to think better of it. The Doctor held the stone to his lips and blew gently. As though the Time Lord's breath held some life giving energy, the stone lit up with a brilliant emerald glow.

"Clever, isn't it?" the Doctor beamed like a child who'd been allowed to dip his finger in the sugar bowl. "Just need to attach it to the emergency system," he reached for the control board he'd been using and placed the stone on something which look like a flat light bulb, where upon it stuck fast.

"There, in about forty minutes that'll be charged enough to get us home."

"So in the meantime," the Doctor looked round when he heard Donna's voice, and was startled to see her at the door.

"Let's find out what's out there." she said playfully, before grabbing the handles-

"DONNA, NO!"

-and throwing the doors wide open, to find that the TARDIS had landed in a very dark metal room. It was empty except for a few boxes stacked to one side. There was very little room to move; it seemed they'd landed in some disused storage space. On the opposite wall a narrow corridor led away at an angle. The shaft of light reaching round the corner was good enough proof that there was more to explore.

"What are you playing at!" the Doctor joined her with the torch in one hand and his sonic screwdriver in the other.

"Don't you realise that we just fell out of the time vortex! I said we might be in a nowhere place. You might have killed us both!"

"Well when has that ever bothered you?" Donna replied coolly as she snatched the torch out of his hand. "Exploring comes first, and since we're both still alive there's probably something worth exploring."

Donna took a few steps forward and looked back at the Doctor. The Doctor struggled to think of something to say, then closed the doors to the TARDIS and walked over to her.

"Knew you couldn't resist." Donna said smugly.

The Doctor tried to look stern, but couldn't prevent the slight grin coming to his face.

"You should be more careful. One of these days you're going to run headlong into danger."

"And when has _that_ ever bothered you?"

Any reply the Doctor may have given was cut short as four people suddenly rushed into the room brandishing weapons.

The one in front was a man with the physic of a rugby player. He was dressed in army boots, black jeans, a green t-shirt and a black vest covered in small pockets, obviously for holding things like grenades and ammunition. He had reddish brown crew-cut hair and fingerless black leather gloves which tightly gripped a machine gun.

The woman who stood next to him was of a more regular height and build but still taller than average and very slim. Her light brown hair only reached down to her neck. The sleeves of a light blue t-shirt came out from under the thick, jet black bullet proof vest she wore. Dark blue jeans, ankle high boots and a kalashnikov completed the assembly.

The was another woman with a bullet proof vest, although it was more accurate to describe her as a girl; she couldn't have been more than twenty. She also wore dark blue jeans, but her boots were brown, and the sleeves of her t-shirt were red. Her hair was a deep auburn and was tied back into a long ponytail with a pink ribbon. At her waist she held a gun that was smaller than the one's the first two people were holding, but it was still automatic and still pointed in a dangerous direction; namely at the Doctor and Donna.

The last person was a tall and lanky man with rugged, dark blond hair. Like the girl, he was wearing brown boots and blue jeans. He had a brown leather jacket which was open, revealing a black t-shirt and equipment bandoleers. There was a shotgun hanging from his shoulder and a large pistol with a laser sight in his hands.

They all wore angry frowns on their faces, and were obviously prepared to shoot with the slightest provocation.

The Doctor and Donna quickly raised their hands.

"It bothers me now." the Doctor whispered.


	3. Chapter 3

Once the prisoners had been ushered out of the store room the six people stopped and stared at each other. The tall man in the pinstriped black suit, brown trench coat and white trainers had brightly introduced himself as a Doctor (or more accurately, THE Doctor, whatever that meant) and the woman as Donna Noble, until Claire ordered them to 'shut it'. Originally, the Survivors had assumed the pair were scientists. However, while the Doctor was dressed in a suit, the woman was wearing cotton trousers and a purple shirt. Not professional scientist style and not the sort of thing for arctic conditions. Beside which, they simply didn't look like scientists. Whoever they were, they were weird.

"So, you say you're a doctor?" Jill asked in a suspicious tone.

"So, we can speak now?" the Doctor replied with thinly concealed sarcasm.

"When you're asked a question," Chris growled as he cocked the hammer on his magnum "yes."

"What's your name?" Jill spoke again, expecting a straight answer after such a threat.

"Just 'The Doctor'."

Jill suppressed a frown and stalked forward till she was almost face to face with her suspect.

"So you must be someone important in this lab." Jill threatened. "One of the top guys who make the decision to experiment on innocent people; to grow monsters for the sake of profit."

A moment ago the Doctor had looked almost friendly, but as Jill spoke he began to look more and more stern, his eyes cold and hard and his mouth a grim slash across his face.

"It'd make sense, how you survived the outbreak in here, and how you scared those hunters off."

"Bet you had a lot of good ideas after you wasted Racoon City." Chris stepped forward, far more aggressively.

"I expect you thought you'd be safe with these monsters guarding the place, but we've had plenty of experience with these things."

"And now we're here to put an end to them," Chris held his revolver at point blank range to the Doctor's face. Donna gasped slightly as her eyes darted between the two men.

"And a good way to start," Chris continued "is to get rid of murdering bastards like you who started this research."

"By the looks of it, I'd say you've got something to hide." Jill took over again. "Come clean now, and you have my word you'll come out of this place alive. What have you got to lose by cooperating?"

The former S.T.A.R.S. members paused for an answer. The Doctor just watched them, as though he were trying to work them out. Chris was just about to give the man another threat, when suddenly he spoke.

"You've assumed quite a lot about me."

Chris and Jill glared in fury.

"Is that supposed to be joke?"

"No, it's a fact." the Doctor began talking with his cheerful tone and started pacing around. The Survivors tensed and aimed their weapons with more enthusiasm, but the Doctor ignored them, much to their surprise and slight embarrassment.

"All these things you've said about me is guess work. Good guess work, but all this stuff about me doing experiments and making monsters; you don't even believe that yourselves, do you?"

"What are you talking about?" Chris asked, perturbed that the prisoner had guessed so correctly.

"That's a little skill of mine too." The Doctor grinned like a loony as he started taping a large steel pillar as though testing it. "Deduction. I'm guessing that all this stuff about me being an important scientist is just a threat, to scare me into telling you everything so you don't think I'm anything to do with what's going here. I can tell from the look in your eyes. But the accusation was done brilliantly. The old 'good cop, bad cop' routine where one acts efficient and reasonably while the other pretends to be a thug. And you slipped into those roles perfectly. Yep, you two are defiantly something to do with the police, but the clothes you're wearing are too casual for standard police and too military for detectives. I'd say you were part of some sort of special police operations department. Or at least you _were_. You haven't shown any badges or said who you work for, and you haven't arrested us or reported finding us and have already started with the questioning, meaning you two are the highest authority here. So you're left your police work and have come here with two friends. That one there..."

The Doctor pointed at a wide eyed and opened mouthed Leon.

"He's trained like a soldier, I can tell by the way he's been mostly ignoring our conversation and letting you get on with it but has been keeping guard. And since he hasn't actually looked about much I'd guess he's had some extra special sort of training so that he's aware of more than just what he sees. And she-"

He pointed at Claire, who looked equally stunned.

"-only has a small amount of experience, which is why she's been paying close attention to us. But she knows what she's doing. You can tell that from the way she's holding that weapon. Military life must run in your family." he looked at Chris. "But you're obviously protective of her so I'm surprised you brought her with you."

Everyone was gobsmacked.

Jill could barely believe she'd just heard the Doctor's monologue. The 'good cop, bad cop' routine had been exactly what they were doing. How on earth had this strange man seen through them so easily?

"How'd you know she was my sister?" Chris challenged.

"Your tongue."

This time, even Donna looked confused.

"From the way you talk I can tell you can roll your tongue. And a moment ago when the young lady spoke I could tell she could roll her tongue too. It's a genetic characteristic you share, along with the fact neither of you have ear lobes, plus both of you have reddish brown hair, even though they're both of a very different shade. Then of course, I notice you're standing almost directly in front of her; a sort of natural protection instinct. Of course I wasn't entirely sure you were related but now, you've just told me."

The conversation stopped for a moment. The Doctor and Donna simply waited for a response. The Survivors watched the strange pair with a mixture of confusion and suspicion. Then Chris lowered his gun, and the others followed suit. Obviously guns weren't going to make any impression on these two.

"Okay," said the Doctor "so we got off to a bad start."

* * *

The soldiers grudgingly introduced themselves, and the Doctor reassured them with a flash of the psychic paper, claiming to be a geologist. The big man called Chris snatched it out of his hand to take a closer look, and the Doctor prayed he could get it back before it changed to show the former police officer's thoughts.

"Me and Donna don't know anything about this place." he explained. "We were just investigating the area as part of a project in nearby fault lines in the earth, but... we had some problems."

"You mean a crash land?" the man asked as he handed back the psychic paper without another glance. The Doctor looked at the paper, and was pleased to see that the risk had been a blessing in disguise. The words on the paper now read-

_'They must have had a plane to get to the __Arctic. Can they still use it? But why are they here? Didn't they think a completely empty underground lab hidden under a research base was weird?'_

"That's right!" the Doctor continued. "Our plane crash landed. We weren't hurt but the plane is useless. Good thing we noticed this research base nearby, but we've been looking around and can't find anyone. All seems a bit fishy to me."

The Doctor gave a pleasant smile which was met with an uncertain scowl from Chris. He suspected something, but he could hardly say he was suspicious because all of his unasked questions had been answered.

"So then, you mentioned that you call yourselves 'The Survivors'. What are you all doing here?"

All of them looked grimly at the Doctor.

"Monster hunting?" Donna guessed.

"You've heard of the incident with the Umbrella Corporation, right?" Chris asked.

"No, but go on."

The rest of the Survivors looked on in surprise. The dissolving of Umbrella had been a massive incident, but the two geologists claimed to know nothing of it.

"Umbrella was responsible for creating the viral weapons that contaminated Racoon City. That's why it was destroyed in a nuclear attack. We," Chris gestured at the others "were some of the few people to escape in time. We helped to shut Umbrella down but someone's taken over the research down here. We're here to finish them off."

"I see," The Doctor replied with genuine interest. "So a company started making viral weapons, in secret I presume,"

"Hence the name 'Umbrella'." Donna quickly put in, unusually perceptive for a change.

"And so you four decided to stop this company. And succeeded, but now you're going after some rogue scientist who doesn't want stop." The Doctor screwed up his face with a look of confusion. "Could I ask why? Shouldn't you get help from some higher authority?"

"I work for the American government." the man called Leon said. "They want to recover all the virus research for the sake of national security. We're here to make sure no one ever gets their hands on this stuff ever again."

"Not only that," Chris went on grimly "but the scientist down here is an old friend of ours."

"Not a good friend then?" Donna replied to the foul expression Chris was wearing.

_"No, not really."_ a loud voice echoed throughout the cavern, giving everyone a jump.

"Who's that?" Donna asked no one in particular.

_"I am Doctor Albert Wesker, director and head scientist of Umbrella incorporated."_ the voice said.

"Oh good; I was wondering how long we'd have to wait." the Doctor walked back to the pillar he'd been looking at a moment ago and plucked a tiny bit of plastic from where it had been carefully concealed.

"Micro camera. Perfect for keeping an eye on people if you're too shy to speak to them face to face."

_"You're an intelligent man, doctor. Too bad those idiots are trying to fill your head with their vigilante rubbish. If they'd taken a second to think they could have just asked me who you and your friend are. I would have told them straight away you not one of mine."_

"Well they don't need to ask that at all. We're people; people don't belong to other people. Although from what they're telling me... you've got other ideas about that."

For a moment, there was no reply from Wesker. The Doctor glared down the lens of the micro camera. This Albert Wesker was a dangerous man; a rival the Doctor recognised from age old experience. He could just imagine the man. Sitting alone in a dark room, surrounded by computers, leaning back in a swivel chair to gloat comfortably, convinced of his own superiority. The Time Lord knew this man would be difficult to deal with, and near impossible to reason with, but he wasn't the first of his kind. If this Doctor Wesker turned out to be a threat to big to ignore, the Doctor felt confident in rising to the challenge.

_"This is my laboratory Doctor. I control every door, light and computer in the complex. You'll never get out of here alive unless I decide to let you. So I'll make this easy for you; either you all lay down your weapons and we __negotiate which three of you will become my new test subjects and which three will be allowed to leave, or else you can try and fight your way to the bottom floor where I'm waiting and ultimately you'll _all _be captured and used as lab rats."_

"The hell we'll give up!" Chris interjected loudly, striding over to the Doctor to glare down at the camera.

"Thank you Chris." the Doctor said in an exasperated tone. "You've just ruined our chance of easy access to the nerve centre of this whole base and put all our lives in danger at the same time." the Doctor turned round so his back was facing Chris.

"Well Albert Wesker. If you're to planning experiment on us can I at least know what it is you're experimenting with?"

_"To be honest, I hadn't decided. __It's just that when the heat sensor in that camera you're holding detected the arrival of two new heartbeats, I was intrigued."_

Wesker let the point hang, and the Doctor knew why. The Survivors thought Wesker was talking about himself and Donna. The Doctor looked over at Donna, and from the uncertain and fearful look in her eyes, she'd realised the same thing. Wesker knew the Doctor had two hearts. If he managed to capture the Doctor, the resulting experiments with Time Lord DNA could be horrific.

_"Like I said," _Wesker spoke again _"If you don't want to give up that's fine."_

Suddenly a high pitched whining sound started coming from the Doctor's top pocket. He quickly reached in and produced his sonic screwdriver, which had activated for no apparent reason.

_"It just means I'll have to send the hunters to fetch you."_

Then was a thud of something heavy falling. The Doctor spun round. Leon and Claire had darted away from where they had been standing. Jill, who had been standing just in front of them had been knocked to the floor by a thing. The thing was a repulsive looking, hunch backed monster. It seemed to share features from humans and lizards, but was lime green in colour.

_"I wouldn't advise you to resist." _Wesker even _sounded _like he was smirking._ "I want you all alive, but I won't miss a few limbs if you cause my hunters any problems."_

Then another hunter fell from the rafters, a few feet behind the first. Then another, in front of the passageway to the storeroom. They were cut off from the TARDIS.

Donna raced over to the Doctor as three more of the monsters began stalking out of the shadows towards her.

"Have you ever met half man half frog monsters before?" Donna said as she took refuge at the Doctor's elbow.

"Not really."

"Well what the hell are we going to do?"

The Doctor looked on helplessly as a pair of hunters grabbed Jill, heedless of the deep cuts they left on her arms, and tried to drag her away. Chris immediately aimed his machine gun.

"NO!" the Doctor yelled as he knocked the gun aside. "Those things can tear us to pieces! No shooting!"

"Well scare them off then!" Chris yelled back.

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"When you were in the storeroom. That thing making that weird noise scared them off!"

The Doctor froze when he heard that. The 'weird noise' must have been the TARDIS.

Their arrival scared the hunters away.

The sonic screwdriver activated by itself.

He looked at a nearby speaker. Though Wesker had stopped speaking, the Doctor could sense it was still in use.

All the facts were connected. The Doctor calculated and contemplated them all, generating enough electrical energy in his brain to kill a human.

Chris couldn't take it anymore. He charged the monsters attacking Jill, and was instantly knocked down by one of them. Leon and Claire panicked and began firing, the booming of gunfire driving the hunters berserk as they lunged forward as one.

"DOCTOR!" Donna screamed in terror.

"That's me!" the Doctor cried with glee as he held up the sonic screwdriver. He quickly turned the base of the bulb and pressed the switch.

The deafening sound of shooting was drowned out by mighty bellows. The hunters stopped whatever they had been doing and slashed furiously at their own necks as thin metal collars which previously escape everyone's notice (the huge claws and green skin being far more distracting) sparked wildly. The ring of steel the hunters had created a moment ago broke apart as they staggered around in pain.

"You know what happens now." the Doctor looked at Donna.

"Oh yes I do." Donna gasped.

"RUN!" they shouted in unison.

The others conceded the point without question. Chris and Jill were rapidly helped to their feet and the six people took off through the labyrinth.

They ran for some minutes. As usual, the Doctor found himself leading everyone else. He'd only just met these people and already their lives were his responsibility. Without a doubt, humans were amazing creatures, but did they have to be such a handful? No time to think. A wrong turn could get them all killed.

The Doctor had been forced to turn off the screwdriver, lest it overload with strain he'd put it though. As they ran they could hear the swoops of diving hunters, getting closer every second. Shadows either side of the party zoomed by, many looking suggestively like huge clawed and muscled creatures closing in for the kill.

"Door!" Donna's voice bought everyone skidding to a halt. They raced to the left where an open door with an electronic lock offered sanctuary.

They piled though, and Leon pulled the door closed, just as the Doctor switched settings on the screwdriver and aimed it at the lock. A reassuring click grabbed everyone's attention.

"Good work Donna!" the Doctor beamed.

"I'm a natural at this sort of thing." Donna smiled back as she tried to catch her breath.

"What the heck happened back there?" Leon asked, recovering from the run first.

"Those things had sound wave based inhibitors round their necks. Ultrasonic waves coming from the speakers were controlling them. However," the Doctor held out his sonic screwdriver for everyone to see "the waves were picked up on this little thing. All I did was to send out a reverse frequency which was exactly the opposite of the command frequency that dear doctor Wesker was using, and scramble the inhibitors."

The Doctor looked extremely pleased with himself as everyone but Donna gaped at him in confusion. Then his face fell.

"Although," he said slowly "if I've left this on the reverse frequency configuration," he twisted the top of the screwdriver, just beneath the bulb "that means the setting for locking doors is..."

As though impatient for the Doctor's conclusion, a hunter pulled the door open with ease and shrieked at it's prey.

The prey in question turned and ran, with Donna shouting "I hate you sometimes!"


	4. Chapter 4

With the hunters sealed behind another door, the group was able to stop to patch up wounds and assess their supplies. Jill had dropped her bag which held spare grenades and two pieces of plastic explosive, but going back to get them was more or less impossible. The Survivors offered the Doctor and Donna some weapons but they both refused, the former viewing the pistols with disgust and the latter far too fascinated by the healing properties of the first aid spray to care.

So they carried on through the dark passageway, Chris and Jill leading the way, the Doctor behind them asking a constant stream of questions as they explained to him about how the mother/progenitorvirus had been discovered and manipulated into the T-virus which not only transformed people into zombies and monsters like the hunters, but could be used to grow a monstrous super soldier called a tyrant.

Leon followed behind them keeping a wary eye on the Doctor. That left Donna and Claire bringing up the rear.

Donna tried to start a conversation with Leon, but he responded in such a surly way Donna decided he wasn't worth the effort.

"Well he's not very social, is he?" she remarked to Claire.

"He probably doesn't trust you." Claire said bluntly. "Gotta admit, you guys appearing out of nowhere and nearly killing twenty hunters even though you say you've never even heard of Umbrella." she looked at Donna with narrowed eyes.

Donna realised if she said the wrong thing it would land her in a whole lot of trouble. So she gave the most evasive and truthful answer she could think of.

"I... we've been out of touch for some time. Doing a lot of travelling. Besides which, whenever something big happens I usually miss out anyway."

Claire's expression softened slightly at Donna's sincere tone.

"Like that, huh?" she asked. "Working away from the real world. I thought your friend seemed a bit crazy."

Donna snorted with laughter.

"You got that right." she smiled. "But it's worth it."

"So you two are..." Claire gestured to the Doctor with her head.

"Oh no. No way." Donna said firmly. "But you never get bored being with him."

"Well I can't see how it could be boring being trapped underground in lab filled with diseased half human monsters."

Donna didn't reply. With all the recent panic she hadn't quite taken in the bit about human experiments. Another one of those important things which she missed out on. And Claire didn't seem to think much of her for it.

"Have there been a lot of these... experiments?"

"When there was an outbreak in Racoon City over a hundred thousand people died."

Donna gaped.

"A hundred thousand?"

"That's right. And I was there to see it all."

Donna stopped for a moment, unsure if this was a signal to stop speaking.

_'Then again,'_ Donna thought _'it's not like I don't know what it's like to see a city get destroyed. Blimey, I _destroyed_ a city; bet she can't top that.'_

"That really terrible. You've gotta be pretty brave to come here after going through something like that."

"Well I had to. I couldn't let my brother go after Wesker without trying to help. I'm not gonna risk losing him too."

Donna noticed the 'too' and suspected there was more than just sisterly affection involved.

"Is this Wesker dangerous then?" Donna asked naively.

"He infected himself with the T-virus, so now he's a half human monster like those hunters, he just doesn't look like it."

"If he's so dangerous, why don't you get help from the government or the army or something?"

"Wesker used to be Chris and Jill's captain in the Racoon City S.T.A.R.S team." when Donna responded with a look of confusion, she added "That means Special Tactics And Rescue Squad; a special department in the police. He betrayed them and six of them were killed by his monsters. Chris and the others aren't gonna stop till they settle the score."

"I'm surprised your brother let you come here. If the Doctor knew what it'd be like here he'd probably have made me stay behind."

"He tried to make me stay, but I not very easy to stop. With Barry- he's one of the S.T.A.R.S members- he's in hospital with a gunshot wound. Rebecca's from S.T.A.R.S too, but she had to stay up top to look after the transport. I wasn't going to stay behind with only three of them going to fight Wesker. Besides, I've got my own fight with him."

Donna noticed Claire's face harden into an expression with an uncanny resemblance to the grim look the Doctor wore when he drowned the racnoss children; the first time she'd seen the Time Lord's darker side.

"What's that mean?"

Claire looked straight at Donna with her stern face. The red haired Londoner found herself half regretting ever trying to start a conversation. Adventures like this were always intense, but it was the one-to-one moments that you had to be careful of. It was the sort of time when a person's deepest thoughts or feelings could be revealed, and could take the conversationalist's relationship to a new level, some which most people would prefer not to go to. But that sort of thing went with the role of being the Doctor's companion; if not to gather information then just to remember that being a time traveller didn't make normal people any less important. So Donna waited to see what Claire would say.

"There was a boy I knew called Steve, who helped me escape from an Umbrella prison." Claire was looking dead ahead, but as Donna watched she was sure she could see a slight gathering of moisture in Claire's left eye.

"If you don't want to talk, it's okay with me." Donna offered, giving into the compassion she felt for the unspoken sorrow in the young girl's eyes.

"Chris managed to get there and save me," Claire carried on as though she hadn't heard "but it was too late for Steve. He was infected by a new virus and turned into a monster. I tried to help him, but he nearly killed me, and then I got trapped by a tentacles creature. He got his senses back at the last moment and saved me, so the thing that attacked me turned on him, and crushed him to d..." Claire stopped for a moment, then composed herself and continued.

"After he died I didn't think things could get worse, but then Wesker arrived and stole his body for his research. That's the last I ever heard of him."

Claire stared straight ahead with water eyes while Donna stared at Claire in open mouthed shock of the terrible tale.

No one could say Donna Noble had ever been parental in her life, but right at that moment she felt such overwhelming concern for this girl, who all of sudden seemed far too young and delicate to be anywhere near this place, that it was tempting to put an arm round her shoulders and tell her everything would be alright.

"So," Claire said in an unexpectedly bright tone "that's why me, Chris and Jill are here. You're probably wondering why Leon's here?"

Even Donna couldn't fail to notice the hidden message _'Change the subject, NOW!'_ so she said "That's exactly what I was thinking."

"Leon was in Racoon City as well. After he escaped he started working for the government, and on his first mission he found out Wesker was trying to capture another bio weapon; a parasite called a Las Plagas."

Donna stopped walking. It was so sudden that Claire stopped too and looked around to see what was wrong.

"What's up?" she said.

"What did you say those things were called?" Donna asked.

"Las Plagas. Why, have you heard of them?"

"They sound familiar." Donna said thoughtfully. "Where do these Las...things come from?"

"They came from some town in Spain. Why?"

Donna didn't answer. Instead, she stared at the back of Leon's head, her mouth hanging open in shock and horror.

"I've seen him before."

* * *

The Doctor typed furiously into the computer he'd found in the small office. He'd already printed off a map of base which was doing a wonderful job of distracting the Survivors. He'd tried shutting down the security systems but they were all being controlled from a separate computer system. It seemed Wesker wasn't an average overconfident super villain, and getting the better of him wouldn't be so easy.

From listening to Chris and Jill, the Doctor had decided he'd have to do something about the virus research. Generally, when the Doctor found trouble in an alternative reality he pointed the authorities in the right direction and flew back to his own world as fast as possible. But in spite of their trigger-happy attitudes, the Survivors were right in saying they couldn't let any government take care of it. The T-virus was little more than bottled genocide and would have to be destroyed. Given the choice the Doctor would just leave and let the people of that world learn for themselves that the virus couldn't be controlled, but in the end he didn't have a choice, because he could make a difference between saving lives and abandoning lives, and if he didn't try to help he'd be just as responsible as Wesker for the harm that could be caused.

So, the Doctor resigned himself to the task and continued searching the computer database. At the moment he was investigating the complete genetic breakdown of the progenitor and T-virus and the history of its research.

"See this Donna?" he said as his companion appeared at his shoulder. "The original virus was found in the ancient remains of a gorilla. The virus prevented a complete decomposition of its body for several hundred years. When they first discovered it the virus caused minor mutations in the researchers like slightly longer fingers and different skin complexions, but it also let them heal from injuries faster and increased their immune system so much that alcohol and cigarettes had no affect on them. And look at this," the Doctor moved back to show a black and white picture of a man with very thick and scruffy hair.

"That was the chief researcher of the project. According to the report before they found the virus he was completely bald. Whatever this virus is, it's not supposed to be used as a weapon. If I'm going to stop this I'm going to have to find a sample of that virus."

"This is a game."

The Doctor and lowered his eyebrows as he tried to work out what Donna had said.

"What d'you mean?" he asked.

"That guy Leon. He's from a computer game back in our world." Donna explained frantically. "This whole place is a computer game!"

"I didn't know you played video games." the Time Lord said, mildly surprised.

"I don't!" Donna protested. "My horrible cousin's kids were playing it last time I visited them. I only noticed because they were shouting in Spanish."

"I didn't know you spoke Spanish."

"I went on a scuba diving holiday to Sp- look, that's not the point! The point is _we are in a computer game_!"

"No, it's just a different dimension."

"But I've seen him!" Donna pointed in Leon's direction. The Doctor sighed as he tried to think of a way to explain.

"It sort of... complicated." he began "Imagine the entire fabric of reality, as a jigsaw. Each and every world is a single jigsaw piece. They all have their own small part of the big picture. So sometimes they have part of the same thing, but they have it in a different perspective. Sometimes things appear differently, like this place being a video game back in our world. It happens a lot. Things in our world are in parallel dimensions as books or television series or even ancient myths and legends. It doesn't mean this world isn't real or anything. It's just the way that parallel worlds... fit together. All to do with the big picture."

"So there's like, a world somewhere where I'm just a TV character or something?" Donna demanded sarcastically.

"Well," the Doctor turned back to the computer so Donna wouldn't see him mutter "Yes actually."

"Great, so the whole world is just a computer game." Donna grumbled as she left the office.

She missed the important point, as usual. For once the Doctor was glad. He'd said 'If I'm going to stop the virus,' not 'If we're,'

Most of his previous companions might have spotted the double meaning, but Donna was easily distracted. And hopefully the distraction would last until they reached the surface, because there was no way he was going to risk letting Donna contract some mutagenic disease.

The Doctor turned the computer off and came out of the office.

"Okay everyone, I'm done." he announced. "Anyone found a way out of here?"

"Down this hallway," Chris pointed in the direction they'd been heading "There's a junction which leads to a large storage room. There should be a cargo elevator in there, but if we can't get that working there's a security station and stairs to the living quarters. We can make our way out through there."

"Right then; let's go." the Doctor said happily as he started off down the tunnel. The others quickly joined him.

"So, found anything interesting about the T-virus?" Chris asked as he caught up with the Time Lord.

"I certainly have. Too much in fact. This virus is like nothing I've ever seen before. The mother virus was found in a gorilla that died nearly a million years ago, but a combination of the virus' cell restoring ability and cold temperatures left remains; enough remains to show that the gorilla didn't contract the virus but already had it in its blood stream."

"So what's that mean?" Chris asked.

"Well many creatures are born with diseases in their blood. If the virus was only found in that gorilla but not modern day gorillas, that would mean that the virus was a part of simian genetic structure but evolution removed it. Not only that, but before it was combined with Ebola, the mother virus caused mutation that was- beneficial, or _meant_ to be beneficial for the people it infected."

"How the hell could anything about that virus be beneficial?"

"Because it causes mutation in response to a threat." the Doctor explained to the incredulous S.T.A.R.S member. "I realised that as soon as I looked at the virus diagram. That means if I'm going to make a cure for that virus I'll have to have plenty of samples to examine. Any T-virus cure or vaccine will have to kill T-virus cells immediately on contact or else the virus will mutate and become even stronger. That means we're going to have to get to the lower labs; that's where the cryogenic and cold storage labs are, according to the map."

Chris could barely believe his ears.

"You're talkin' about finding a cure for a virus that's been so dangerous it's destroyed entire cities? Are you out of your mind? Just who are you Doctor?"

The Doctor looked back with a slightly sheepish expression. What little conversation the others had been making had trailed away into nothing, everyone hoping to find out what was making Chris raise his voice so much.

"It doesn't matter who I am. The point is I can help take care of this virus _and_ stop Wesker, but as long as we're down here we're in danger of contracting this virus ourselves. And I don't know how concerned you are about your sister but I don't want Donna turning into one of those... things! If I'm on my own I can reason with Wesker, but if I've got to keep all of you in check I'll get nowhere. As soon as we get to the surface I want you to take Donna and your friends and get away from this place."

"Now I know you're crazy." Chris laughed without humour, not taking the Doctor seriously. "You think after all this we're just gonna leave and let you take care of the whole thing? How can we even trust you?"

"Chris, please don't give me that." The Doctor implored. "You do trust me. You can't explain it but you feel as though you can trust me, and I promise you, you can. If nothing else you know I'm not working for Wesker. I'm going to stop Wesker, but I'd prefer it if I didn't have to take responsibility for you and the oth-"

"You aren't taking responsibility for anyone." Chris said coldly, his face set like stone. The Doctor stopped and looked at Chris.

"I brought these people here and I'm going to get them out, and I won't let anyone tell them if they can or can't be here." He looked the Doctor in the eye. "We saw what that virus did; saw all those people turn into zombies. What do you know about it? Do you have any idea what it's like?"

For a moment there was no answer, but Chris was conscious of the Doctor gazing at him with a very neutral expression. Chris tried to ignore him but felt uncomfortably aware of the Doctor's ability to see straight through people.

"I know what it's like to be you, Chris Redfield." The Doctor said softly. Chris was tempted to shout back, but held his tongue to see what the Doctor had to say.

"I know what it's like to be standing amongst death and chaos, trying to keep those you care about safe, even though you're powerless to do so." The Doctor continued.

Chris' jaw tightened, but still he stayed quite.

"Those people you care about have come to help you of their own free will, but you still take responsibility for them because you feel it's your duty. You won't tell them what to do because you've no place taking charge, but you'll do all you can to keep them safe. Because if they get hurt you'll feel responsible, and no one can tell you otherwise."

There was a moment of silence between the two of them. Chris turned his head slightly so he could look at the Doctor. His face no longer showed surprise; only grim acceptance of the Doctor's words.

"Aright," Chris finally said, "what are we going to do?"

"First we'll find the way out of here and try to get everyone else to leave. I know you'll refuse to leave so I won't even ask. We then work our way down to one of the labs and use the equipment to make some type of T-virus vaccine. Then we break into the computer systems and see if we can't turn the security against Wesker."

"Good plan." Chris conceded, albeit a little doubtful "I could try and get Leon to take Claire and Donna to the surface. Jill once had an experimental T-virus vaccine used on her, so a sample of her blood could be good for making a cure. Besides, you _are_ going to need some help with the monsters down here, even if you are a pacifist."

"If I get my way there'll be no shooting at all," the Doctor spoke with determination, then added "but thanks for the help."

The two unofficial, unwillingly appointed leaders locked eyes with each other. Their eyes showed uncertainly, a slight rivalry to each others methods, still a few flickers of mistrust; but most of all, a certain respect.

Behind them, walking alone, a sharp eared Leon glared at the back of the Doctor's head.


	5. Chapter 5

At the junction, the unlikely team found that two of the corridors were closed off. One was the route up to the barracks, which was sealed with a featureless steel door, with no kind computer or lock to open it with.

The other path was to the security station, where a computer that could open the nearby door could probably be found. The bullet proof-glass doors would be easy work for the Survivors' demolition charges, but with the numerous moaning silhouettes behind the frosted glass, everyone agreed the security station would be a last resort

That left the storage room itself. Mainly for storing food, the room wad chilled to the point where it was painful to breath. Square and rectangular crates lay in stacks against the walls, covered with a carpet of frost. A soft hum of motors echoed from the ceiling, casting a gentle breeze of frigid air, and everyone's breath flowed out of their mouths as clouds of steam (with the exception of the Doctor's, whose breath was already cold).

At the back of the room was a wide cargo lift, big enough to hold a forklift. It was slightly frosted over but apparently still useable. So now the Doctor just had to convince Donna to go to the surface and wait for him to sort everything out- not an easy task.

"What d'you mean 'wait till you sort it all out?' I'm not going while you're down here fighting off loads of monsters!"

The Doctor sighed in frustration. On the other side of the room the Survivors were talking amongst themselves, more than likely deciding if they could trust the Doctor rather than deciding who should be sent to the surface.

"Donna, there is a virus on the loose in this base. If you catch it you'll die. You have to get out of here until I can find a cure for it."

"What about you? If you catch it, what happens then?"

"Donna, my immune system is over nine hundred years old. I've contracted more diseases that you've ever even heard of. I'm in no danger but you and everyone else is. So please, just go outside as soon as I get this lift working; that way they'll have to leave someone to make sure you're not trying to trick them so we should get some of them to leave."

"Oh, so now I'm bait?" Donna huffed.

The Doctor groaned, looking to the ceiling and grabbing the side of his head. Donna was such a headache at times.

Further conversation was prevented by the Survivors rejoining them.

"Alright Doctor," Chris said "we've decided that your friend should get out of here, seeing as she probably wouldn't be a lot of help."

"Oi!" Donna objected.

"We agreed Claire should go as well to keep an eye on her," Chris continued, ignoring Donna's glaring and Claire's frowning "but the rest of us are staying."

Chris, Jill and Leon glared at the Doctor, while the Doctor calmly looked back at them. Obviously they wanted to split him and Donna up, but that was fine for the Doctor. As long as Donna was out the way and he could keep an eye on the trouble makers.

The Doctor nodded and went to inspect the lift controls. He noticed Donna storming up to Chris out of the corner of his eye, no doubt to argue the decision. The result was inevitable, so the Doctor ignored them and carried on with his work. As he began to open up the circuit box, however, Jill crouched down next to him.

"Chris says you're planning to try and make a cure for the T-virus." Jill looked over the circuit box carefully, not looking at the Doctor.

"Yep, that's what I'm hoping." The Doctor replied as he started zapping the sonic screwdriver at the wires.

"I once got infected by the T-virus, but I managed to get some antidote for it. Even then there was only a small chance I'd survive, and it caused me to have an alergic reaction to F. aid sprays."

Jill twisted two wires together. There was a spark, and a heating system began to thaw out the lift. Task done, she looked at the Doctor with scrutinising eyes.

"What makes you think you can make a perfectly effective cure for something like the T-virus?"

Whether she trusted him or not, Jill obviously didn't believe the Doctor could stop the T-virus. He hoped to prove her wrong.

"Well, can you tell me anything about the cure you were given?"

"You're the Doctor, not me."

The Doctor looked at Jill as coldly as she looked at him.

"I'm not a scientist; I've no idea what was in it." Jill hissed, then added "According to Umbrella's records, that cure was actually a vaccine, and they think I might be immune to the T-virus. They were trying to capture me for their experiments for nearly five years." Jill spoke with a bitter tone.

"Immune?" the Doctor forgot about his frosty attitude. "How do you create immunity to a disease that's designed to cause mutation in order to be effective? That's not possible."

Jill shrugged and said "I think some T-virus cells were part of the vaccine. That's all I know."

"Now that is interesting." the Doctor said thoughtfully.

Further speculation was stopped by metallic clang from the lift, indicating it was ready for use.

_"__Ah; you've made it this far. Not bad for such a rabble."_

Everyone looked to the ceiling, to where Wesker's smug voice blurted from more hidden speakers.

"Well that's the way of things, isn't it?" the Doctor replied in a jovial tone. "You get all the multi-million dollar computers and labs and state of the art security systems, but in the end it's the ordinary, everyday human beings who make the difference. Can't trust technology to do anything."

_"The way you speak Doctor; one would think you weren't a human being yourself."_

The Doctor didn't reply. It was rare for someone to out talk him, but the Doctor couldn't think of anything to say. If Wesker decided to say out loud the Doctor had two hearts, he might have some awkward explaining to do to the Survivors. Donna quickly noticed the hesitation and tried to fill the void.

"Well from what I've heard, you not exactly human yourself!" she shouted out loud.

_"True,"_ Wesker answered back _"I've become something far better than human. And with a little help from my latest bio-weapon, so will you soon enough."_

Chris pushed Donna aside and shouted "Well, what sort of monster you got for us this time?"

_"So eager to jump into the fire, Chris? You'll know soon enough, but first I think I'll soften you up."_

A noise came from the hallway outside the storeroom. It sounded suspiciously like the previously sealed doors to the barracks and the security station were opening.

The Doctor pulled Donna behind him, while the Survivors formed a line and pointed their weapons at the entrance. He considered shoving Donna into the lift and sending her to safety, but was distracted by the sight of figures moving through the mist.

"Zombies..." Chris said in a venomous tone. "Shoot as soon as you can get a clear shot."

"No one's shooting at all!" the Doctor demanded as he pushed in front of the Survivors. "What exactly are these things?"

"People infected with the T-virus. The virus kills most people rather than turn them into a bio-weapon, but it then reanimates there corpse. One bite and you become one of them."

The Doctor continued to stare at the shapes, even as they continued to get closer. He ignored the various pleas and demands to get out the way as he blocked the Survivors' line of fire, determined to find out what exactly was lurking towards them.

In the rafters above, a seemingly minor fault in the wiring of one of the motors caused a particularly strong gust of cold air to blow down into the room. As the breeze came down it dispersed the fog that blocked the view.

And the Doctor got his first look at a horde of zombies.

The first was a woman. She looked as though she had once been short and stout, but she seemed even shorter now as she shambled along, doubled up due to the bloody wound in her stomach. Her shoulder length blond hair was slick and shiny with various bodily fluids, blood being the most prominent. Her forearms were almost completely devoid of flesh and she held them like the claws of a praying mantis, her hands nothing more than stumps. Her face was dark grey with rotten flesh and sagged off her bones like the skin of an elephant. Her eyes were dull yellow, rolled blindly into the back of her head, and her mouth hung open limply, allowing a low primal moan to echo out.

The man next to her had barely anything left where his face should be. Most of his head was pure bone with sticky patches of decayed flesh keeping eyes and brain from dribbling out. His tongue lolled out of a hole in the bottom of his jaw, covering his naked body with drool. He wore nothing except a shredded lab coat but modesty wasn't really an issue. His pelvis had been ripped to shreds, leaving him sexless and unable to walk without stumbling. His torso was largely untouched, save for two obvious bite marks in his chest and hip.

Around and behind the two leaders, more lurched forward. Some were as badly wounded as the first two. Others simply had repulsive skin complexions. All moaned mindlessly as they stumbled, staggered and limped towards their latest victims.

Donna retreated into the lift and grabbed one of the rails to support herself, choking down the urge to vomit.

"Doctor! Give us some firing space!" Leon shouted.

The Doctor spun to face the Survivors. All four of them took an involuntary step back at the sight of his face. It was a mask of blind fury. His eyes glared such solid, uncompromising hatred it was almost impossible to imagine that this man claimed to hate violence. He looked ready to commit cold blooded murder just for the sake of it. In spite of all the terrible things the Survivors had seen since they vowed to take on Umbrella's B.O.W. experiments, none of them had ever seen or even imagined that such a display of silent yet transparent rage was possible.

"WESKER!" the Doctor practically howled at the ceiling. "What have you done to these people?"

_"The security to this facility had to be increased."_ came Wesker's icy reply. _"In case of an emergency, all water supplies can be contaminated with the T-virus. Soon of course, the T-virus will be obsolete, but until then it still has its uses."_

"These are living people, Wesker! People with lives of their own! Not subjects to test biological weapons on!"

_"They _were_ living people,"_ Wesker corrected without a trace of conscience _"but I've shared power with them. Now they're my guard dogs."_

"You can't do this Wesker!"

_"I can, I have, and when all that's left of you is a few scraps of meat that I can fit inside a test tube, I will."_

Before the Doctor could reply, a zombie tripped within arms reach and its clawed hand whipped out. A quick skip forward allowed him to escape with nothing more than a crease in his coat.

"Everyone in the elevator!" Chris shouted, grabbing Claire by the scruff of her neck and literally throwing her in. Everyone else made a dash for the escape route...

And then it was gone.

Without the slightest sound, the break released and the lift fell, taking Donna, Claire and the hope of escape with it.

"NO!"

"What happened?"

"Where'd they go?"

The chorus of unhelpful exclamations were answered by Wesker.

_"I warned you."_ he scolded. _"This whole base is under my control."_

There was a screeching of gears as the break reapplied and the lift stopped somewhere far below.

"Wesker! Let them go and we'll give up!" the Doctor offered without hesitation.

_"Ah, but what fun would that be?"_

"He's right Wesker." Chris joined in. "Let them go and we'll surrender."

"Chris! You can't!" Jill insisted.

_"Not interested anyway."_ said Wesker. _"You'll all be mine soon enough, and case you've forgotten you're still surrounded by zombies. See you later."_

With that, there was a slight 'click' from the speakers, and Wesker abandoned them to their fate.

* * *

"Are you okay?"

Donna waited for a second or two, then decided it would be safe to open her eyes.

She was still in the lift, with Claire standing over her with a concerned look. Fortunately the zombies were gone, but so was everyone else. Not only that, but the sudden drop hadn't helped her heaving stomach one bit.

"Where are we? And what happened?" she asked as she cautiously stood up.

"The lift was one of Wesker's traps." Claire explained. "I think we've fallen to the bottom of the elevator shaft."

The lift had stopped in the middle of a chamber slightly bigger than the storeroom they'd just been in. It was completely empty, and almost completely dark except for a few dim lights in the top corners.

"How do we get back up?" Donna asked.

"The controls aren't responding. The elevator's stuck here." Claire spoke calmly, but was obviously trying to hide the fact she was scared.

"Well, not to worry. The Doctor will probably be able to get it working again." Donna replied, making a slightly less effective attempt to disguise her fear.

"Wesker said he had control over the base. The lifts are probably all useless. We're going to have to find some stairs."

"What about them? They're still up there with those... things."

"We can't get up there to help them." Claire stared desperately up at the shaft they'd just fallen down. "They've all faced those monsters before. They'll be fine, I'm sure of it."

Donna didn't feel very convinced by this, and by the look of it neither did Claire. But there was absolutely nothing they could do. So they concentrated on their own predicament.

"Which way should we go?" Donna looked around. There were two corridors, each on the opposite side of the room. Both were pitch black.

"The one on the right is in the direction of the room where we met. Let's try that one."

Claire strode to the passageway on the right hand wall of the cavern like room, fumbling for a torch in her belt.

Donna followed, looking around nervously. As they approached she happened to look into the gapping tunnel mouth and saw...

"CLAIRE! LOOK OUT!"

Claire threw herself back as something that looked like a dinosaur's leathery green hand '_whooshed'_ over her head and cratered the tunnel wall.

Claire sprang to her feet and without another word, she and Donna sprinted down the tunnel on the other side of the room. The pounding footsteps behind them indicated the monster was giving chase.

* * *

Jill could barely believe that they were still letting the Doctor take charge while they were trapped by nearly forty semi-decomposed, mindless, flesh eating, disease ridden freaks-of-nature.

"DON'T SHOOT! There's no need for shooting! Just stay in that corner and wait!"

Maybe it was because trying to fight their way out would be nearly impossible, or maybe because the Doctor was the only one to so readily take responsibility for saving everyone's lives (except for Chris, who stood in front of her and Leon trying to find out what he could do to help).

It certainly wasn't because he could keep his head in a crisis.

The Doctor was frantically charging about on the other side of the room. Having found the elevator was completely unusable, he'd ordered the three remaining members of the Survivors to back into the corner on the left side of the room while he went to the right.

He tore several cables out of the lift control box and left them on the floor. He then ran over to another control panel and started trying to get it working. Then he aimed his strange little remote control thing at the ceiling and zapped the blue light at it a few times.

He repeated this twice, and all the while the zombies were getting closer.

"Doctor!" Chris shouted as the crowd began to turn in the direction of him, Jill and Leon (probably attracted by the larger food supply) "They're getting too close; we've gotta do something."

"Yes, and what you can do is stay still and be quite." The Doctor quickly rewired the lift so one end of the cable connected to the control box and the other lay on a large crate. "If these things really are mindless then they'll be more attracted to things that get their attention." as if to prove the point, a few zombies broke away from the rest and began moving towards him. "That means that by making a fire, a lot of noise and providing plenty meat, I can get their attention long enough for you to run round behind them."

"And how you gonna do all that?" Leon asked. "And how are you going to escape?" he added as an afterthought.

The Doctor pulled a lever on the panel that was attached to the wall. There was a whoosh of displaced air, a clatter of chains, and a crane with a wooden carrying platform fell from the ceiling and mercilessly crushed the crate beneath it. It splintered without resistance, and dozens of frozen chicken breasts tumbled out and skidded across the floor. Without stopping, the Doctor aimed his remote device at the ceiling again. Two of the freezer motors stopped working and cracked open, spilling anti-freeze all over the place. Then the Doctor reached for the lift controls and turned it on.

The cable that lay in the sad remains of the crate sparked, and a wall of bright yellow flames leapt up in reply. The fire was short lived, but had the desired effect. The chicken breasts charred on the surface and faint smell of roasting meat began to blot out the smell of rotting corpse.

"AS SOON AS YOU CAN," The Doctor shouted in an unnecessarily loud voice "RUN BEHIND THEM AND GET OUT OF HERE! I'LL FOLLOW IN A MOMENT!"

They could barely believe he was serious.

_'This guy gets more unbelievable by the minute.'_ Jill thought to herself. He barely knew them, yet he was readily risking his life just to give them a chance to escape, and even as the zombies began to move towards him, he showed no apparent interest in getting himself to safety, and still refused to tell the Survivors that they should start shooting. Jill could only imagine that he was either brave to the point of being crazy, or he was just plain stupid.

Pity his courageous gamble didn't pay off.

About six zombies had turned in his direction, but the rest continued at a painfully slow pace towards the three soldiers. Even worse, they completely ignored the chicken breasts and the last few flames as they moved closer to their prey.

"That's not right." The Doctor sounded confused.

"What kind of plan was that Doctor!" came the furious reply from Chris.

"You said they were mindless!"

"They still have instincts!"

"That's impossible! A viral based brain deterioration is always guaranteed-"

"Never mind that shit! Fire!"

The sound of bullets drowned out even the Doctor's yell. After so long without a single shot fired, the noise seemed impossibly deafening. The rifle and pistol bullets slapped wetly into the bodies that surged towards them. Those few that took particularly devastating blows to the head fell, but most just continued to stumble forward and moaned indifferently.

"Chris," shouted Jill as she changed the magazine in her kalashnikov "if we survive this remind me never to trust a madman I barely know to plan our escape."

Chris looked like he could have kicked himself. Jill couldn't blame him. To think they'd put their lives in his hands so willingly. Chris backed up and stood between her and Leon.

"I'm so sorry Jill." Chris said simply, choosing to use his last moments of life to look at her rather than fight.

As Jill looked back, she could clearly see the guilt in his eyes; the weight of responsibility. With inevitable death approaching she wanted to say something to relieve his burden; to let him know that she didn't blame him, that she was glad he was going to be with her at the end, that she was grateful to be with him even now. If only it hadn't been for 'Umbrella'. Who knows how their lives would have turned out if they didn't have to face the horrors of their evil experiments. She laid her hand on his arm, wondering how to convey all this in such a short time.

She didn't get the chance.

With a calamity of rattling chains and grunting zombies, the crane swung like a demolition ball and sent the horde tumbling to the floor like skittles.

"If you're all finished shooting everything in sight," the Doctor spoke as though he were scolding a child "perhaps you'd like to climb on that crane so I can save your lives."

They stared at him in amazement. It was Leon who first reacted, diving onto the wooden holding platform and running to the opposite end to weigh it down. Chris and Jill quickly followed, Chris naturally stopping to hold the crane in place for Jill before climbing on himself.

When they were all in place, the Doctor said " 'bout time. Now; Allons-y!" and hit the switch.

Immediately, the crane began to swing towards the entrance of the storeroom.

"Doctor!" Jill called out, for the first time since she met him actually concerned about what happened to him seeing as he'd saved their lives.

In response, the Doctor sprinted full pelt towards the crane and with a surprising feat of agility, used a zombie's back as a springboard-

"Sorry!"

-and jumped onto the platform, just managing to grab the side as it tried to escape him.

Chris instantly grabbed the Doctor's arm and began to haul him up. Jill also reached out to help, although Leon stayed back.

"Oh that's nice," the Doctor remarked "a moment ago I was a madman you couldn't trust."

"You're worth it if you can keep saving our lives like that." Jill grunted with effort.

Just then, a particularly energetic zombie leaped up and took a mouthful out of Jill's arm.

PAIN!

Jill screamed, almost toppling off the crane in shocked, saved only by Leon snatching hold of her other arm.

"Jill! Are you all right?" asked Chris, leaving the Doctor to finish hauling himself up.

"Yeah... fine" she gasped.

"Did Jill get bitten?" the Doctor asked excitedly "That's brilliant!"

In response to the dark glares he received, the Doctor quickly amended his comment.

"I mean, terrible. Really terrible. But if Jill's been bitten that means her immunity to the T-virus should work. That means her body will create an antibody that can kill the T-virus. This could be our chance to cure the T-virus, you see?"

"Sounds great Doctor," Leon replied "but we're getting to the end of the room."

They all looked up, and as Leon said, the crane was swiftly approaching the door way to the storage room, and the doorway was obviously too small for the platform to swing though.

"Whoops!" the Doctor quickly pointed his remote device in the direction of the lift controls and activated it.

The crane jarred to a halt and the passengers were thrown off by the sudden stop.

The Doctor was first on his feet, sprinting the last few feet to the doorway.

"Well, are you coming?"

The Survivors quickly gathered there wits made a break for it, just as the zombies at the back of the crowd began to turn towards them.

The disgusting sight of the monsters was concealed as a metal shutter dropped into place, courtesy of the Doctor.

"Well, that wasn't too bad, now was it?" he said in an annoyingly cheerful voice. The others all looked ready to give obscene answers, but the Doctor didn't wait for a reply.

"Right then, it's this way." he said as he pointed to the corridor that they'd come down to get to the storeroom.

"Wait, Doctor." Chris stepped in the Doctor's path. "We just came that way. The only thing down there is pack of hunters."

"We've got to risk it." the Doctor tried to step around Chris.

"What are you talking about? We go that way and we'll get killed."

"I've got this, remember," the Doctor held up the little machine he'd used to cripple the hunters before "we've got to take a chance."

"Doctor," Jill interjected "you may have saved our lives just then, but we've fought these monsters before and we're not going to follow you blindly into a room full of hunters."

The Doctor rounded on her.

"My friend has fallen into the lower levels of this base." he spoke fiercely. "Whatever we've faced up here, she could be down their facing them on her own right now. I'm not going to abandon her down there. If you don't want to come then fine, but don't expect any more help from me until I know she's safe."

"Who says we need your help Doctor?" Leon put in. "If you're crazy enough to face twenty hunters on your own we're better off without you."

"I don't know what sort of soldier you were trained as, Lee," the Doctor looked to him now "but where I come from we don't abandon our friends, under any circumstances!"

"You're forgetting my sisters down their too, Doctor." Chris suddenly said loudly, causing the Doctor's temper to deflate slightly as he turned back to him.

"I'm just as worried about her as you're worried about Donna," he continued in a steady voice "but we'll be no help to them if we get ourselves killed by rushing in without a plan. We've got to get back to the surface and prepare."

Chris and the Doctor looked at each other for a long moment. Jill noticed that they seemed to have developed a sort of understanding between them, seeing as they both had a skill for leadership, so she and Leon stayed quite.

"Alright," the Doctor said at last "we'll head to the surface first."

Chris nodded, and without another word they headed to the now open passageway leading to the barracks, the Doctor letting Chris take the lead.

* * *

"Keep going Donna!" Claire gasped as she stopped and turned around.

"What d'you mean?" Donna replied, supporting her body against the wall and spluttering for breath.

They'd run through a maze of dark corridors ever since they'd left the room with the lift. There seemed to be no signs, doors or any distinguishing features to tell one passageway from another. The monster's thudding footsteps had faded away after some time but every so often the sound would gradually begin to echo from the shadows, forcing the women to greater efforts to get away. Now the footsteps were approaching again, but they were both far too exhausted to make a run for it.

"I'll stop here and hold it off," Claire explained as she brandished her pistol, her machine gun dropped somewhere along the way "you might be able to get away then."

"There's no way I'm leaving you here." Donna protested.

To be honest, she found the offer sorely tempting. The footsteps were getting closer, slowly growing louder and quicker. Whatever the creature was, it was defiantly coming from the tunnel they just escaped down. It was possible that it might be distracted by one person trying to fight it off, but Donna couldn't bring herself to leave someone behind on their own.

"It's our only chance." Claire said firmly. "Just run for it."

"I'm not going to r-"

"NOW!"

With that, Claire pushed Donna down the passage and ran to face the terrible creature.

Donna tripped and fell, and by the time she was on her feet, Claire had gone.

It was a brave move, but the young girl had failed to remember she had the only torch. Donna was left standing in a spotlight from a dim, tube like bulb, which gave light to the immediate area but emphasised the darkness beyond.

She looked in the direction the footsteps were coming from, but Claire and even the light from her torch had already been swallowed up by the darkness.

"Claire, come back!" she shouted out.

There was no reply, but the footsteps abruptly ceased.

There was a moments silence.

Then Claire's voice shrieked with horror.

"NO!"

There was a crash, the sound of stone cracking, and then the light above Donna spluttered out.

She was left in pitch black.

Donna stood rigid with her back against the wall. She couldn't see a thing and the only sound she could hear was her own breathing, her breath growing shallow from the fear that was creeping up her spine.

Trapped in the dark, unable to sense anything except the uninviting wall at her back and the chill air stinging her face, she found she was unable to move. She was trapped in place by fear and conflicting feelings of wanting to run for her life but unable to leave while Claire could be in danger.

Without a doubt, this was one of the most terrifying experiences she had ever been in. In the past there was always something she could do, like run or sling sarcastic comments at someone. Now she was completely helpless and unable to do anything.

There was a heavy footstep to the left.

Donna held her breath, afraid the creature would be lead to her by the sound.

Another footstep.

She felt the hair on the back of her neck rising.

...

Then the footsteps came at a sprint.

Donna jumped away from the wall, trying to decide what to do.

Too late; it was in front of her.

A massive, unseen hand lashed out and Donna fell to the floor.


	6. Chapter 6

_**I must warn you that from here on, I will be taking a lot of artistic license with the Resident Evil story line, so apologies to those who don't like that sort of thing**_

* * *

The journey had been uneventful, and the Doctor had allowed Chris to take charge. The man had kept his head when most people would have been panicing, and had stopped the Doctor from making the hasty decision to try and force a way through the hunter pack. The Doctor felt he owed the ex-police officer that much, and even managed to swallow his protests whenever the Survivors started shooting zombies. For his part, Chris seem to make a special effort to try and avoid confronting the monsters, choosing to double back and take different paths to get round them, however grudgingly.

Not exactly a perfect working relationship, but they were hardly in a perfect working environment.

Jill also seemed to have developed a tolerance for the Time Lord, although she treated him with a very taciturn attitude. Leon had a transparent dislike for the Doctor and had said nothing to him since the argument outside the freezer room.

Rebecca Chambers, a girl even younger than Claire, had reacted to the Doctor's presence in a completely different way to everyone else. Apparently a good judge of character, she had quickly taken a liking to the Doctor and had been very enthusiastic when he explained he was hoping to make a cure for the dreaded T-virus.

"I've always hoped I'd be able to use my chemistry and medical skills to help make a cure." she said in a high, almost piping voice while she fussed over Jill's injured arm. "Do you really think you can do it?"

"Well I was hoping to," the Doctor murmured distractedly "but I don't think it's going to be as easy as I thought it was."

"Why'd you say that?" Chris asked, his voice muffled by the collar of his winter coat (the Survivors had left their heavy coats with Rebecca while they were investigating to allow them to move faster).

"Jill, have you felt bad at all since we escaped from the freezer room?" The Doctor asked.

"You mean apart from losing a piece of my arm to those _things_?" she replied in annoyance.

"Exactly." he said. "If you're immune to the T-virus, by now there should have been some sort of reaction, caused by antibodies growing and killing the T-virus. Since we left the freezer room, you're shown no sign of sickness and you haven't turned into a zombie. That must mean the virus is still inside you but it's not having any effect."

"Well is she infected or not?" asked Chris.

"Well she probably won't turn into a zombie," the Doctor mused "however, that bite in Jill's arm seems to have stopped bleeding unusually quickly."

Everyone looked to Jill's arm, which Rebecca was still tending to.

"A wound that deep, foreign substance in the blood; you could bleed to death with a wound like that. Yet the blood's stopped flowing out and it's already clotting around the edges."

"But..."

"And could someone remind me, why haven't we used any first aid spray on Jill's arm?"

"It-it doesn't work on me." Jill explained, starting to get nervous from where the Doctor's train of thought was leading. "While I was in Raccoon City I developed an allergic reaction to first aid spray."

"Oh really?" the Doctor raised his head slightly so he was almost looking down his nose at Jill, and added in a sing song voice "round about the time you were given the cure for the T-virus was it?"

"What are you saying?" Rebecca said as she placed a comforting hand on Jill's shoulder.

"Well think about it; first aid spray is a spray that can help heal injuries in an amazingly short time and you tell me it can even counteract the T-virus if used soon enough. Doesn't that seem incredible to you?"

They looked at each other, still not understanding.

"Well what other pharmaceutical company in the world could make something like that?" the Doctor plucked a can of first aid spray from where it sat next to Rebecca and Jill and pointed at a small octagon shaped red and white logo on the back.

"Made by Umbrella, and we know Umbrella has been doing lots of research on a virus with strong regenerative properties. So, put two and two together, and how do you think they made this stuff?"

"You're saying that the first aid sprays use T-virus genes?" Rebecca gasped.

"And as a result Jill can't use them. So somehow the T-virus is already in her body, and if she uses the spray, which is a sort of sub version of the T-virus, the result is a rejection of the first aid spray. Allergic reaction? More like a medicinal overdose."

Silence answered the Time Lord's explanation. Then-

"What the hell?" Chris exclaimed. "How did you work all that out?"

"A lot of good guess work. But the jackpot question is how does Jill manage to stay human while the T-virus is in her body, because that's the answer to how we can make a cure."

"Well until we know the answer," Leon had returned from their plane "we can rely on these."

With that, he passed around the spare weapons; an M16 for Chris, a grenade launcher for Jill, an uzi for Rebecca and a dragunov sniper rifle for himself.

"I'd give you a weapon Doctor, but I guess you wouldn't use it."

"And you wouldn't trust me with it." the Doctor said icily. "I managed to save you all from about fifty of those things without a weapon. Don't you think it's about time you took my advice and stopped using guns?"

"We don't have time to argue about this." Chris said.

"Good idea. Leave the guns behind and there won't be any dispute."

"Doctor, we can't get past those monsters without weapons." Rebecca joined in. "We've all had to fight these things before and we know how dangerous they can be."

The Doctor sighed. He still couldn't get through to these people. And while it was tempting to let them go their separate ways, he would never forgive himself if one of them got killed. Yet if they tried to challenge Wesker it would be a bloodbath, and Donna would very likely get caught in the crossfire. Either he risked all of their lives or he risked Donna's life.

The Doctor pondered what he could do to try and convince them that they didn't need weapons. It would be a difficult point to argue, particularly because at that precise moment, a human body burst from the snow and lunged at the Doctor from behind.

* * *

Donna groaned pathetically. She felt like she had one heck of a hangover. A drum beat pounded repetitively on the inside of her skull, as though her heart were trying to escape through her head. For a moment she wondered if she really did have a hangover, and her memories of an alien called 'The Doctor' were just a dream, but this wasn't the first time she'd woken after one of her Time Lord adventures with a splitting headache, so she knew it must be real.

Speaking of which, the 'adventure' wasn't over yet. Donna forced her heavy eyelids open to take a look at her surroundings.

A fairly wide rectangular room, dim lights on the ceiling, smooth plastic floor and a stinging scent in the air. To the left were tables covered in files and work stations lining the wall holding numerous bottles of chemicals or jars of squelchy things in fluid. In the middle of the tables was a large block that appeared to be an operating table, except for the restraining straps that were attached to the corners. A nearby trolley held what looked like a combination of surgical instruments and torture devices. Straight across from Donna was a bank of computers and monitors, their black surfaces making the whole collection look like an ominous black hole in the sparsely lit room. The wall in front the computer was a single massive window, which looked out onto a huge, brightly lit cavern.

Stacks orange capsules were stored on either side of the arena, and at the very back two colossal structures, built from hundreds of girders fixed in triangular patterns, stretched to the roof and dominated the room, apparently holding the distant roof in place. Apart from that the room was empty, except for a few shapeless blobs that were too far away to clearly see, but looked suspiciously like discarded entrails.

As Donna's concentration returned to her immediate surroundings, she looked to her right-

-and to her horror saw a huge twisted mass of tentacles- no, not tentacles...

Vines. Dozens of long, dark brown creepers, some covered in tiny spikes, some headed with snapping mouths, grew from a spongy plant bulb which was the size of rhino. Pale roots dug fiercely into the shallow pit of damp soil, soaking up the moisture faster than the pipes connected to the glass tank could supply it.

Donna realised with a tiny amount of relief that the warped plant was tightly contained in four walls of armour plated glass. Yet even as she watched, a spiked vine scratched the surface of it's prison in a feeble attempt to escape, while another stuck it's mouth against the glass as though it were trying to reach for Donna. Most of the other vines waved lazily in the air, but some seemed to be tightly coiled around each other, pulsating gently. Then Donna felt a cold tingle go down her spine as she saw the vines were wrapped around living creatures. A cow, a dog, a swan and a human being. All frail and weak, with sticks for limbs and crumpled bags for bodies. All were deprived of hair, fur and feathers, and their flesh was grey and sickly, devoid of any fluids which the plant drank greedily.

Donna looked away from the grotesque display, but that was little improvement. The space behind and around the tank was filled with glass cases, all filled with liquid and holding something organic, some with parts that could be recognised as belonging to a human. Each one had it's foul contents lit up by a small light, as though they were museum exhibits.

Donna tried to move away, but was surprised to find that in spite of having been unconscious she was already standing. A quick look round and she understood. Her hands were manacled together and held above her head by a chain attached to the ceiling. With this discovery, the pain made it's way into the stunned woman's mind.

She screamed out loud as her arms burned with the effort of holding her body off the floor. She flailed her legs as she tried to support herself, but even when she managed to balance on tip-toes her arms strained and threatened to pop out of their sockets. Tears of pain came to Donna's eyes, but she gritted her teeth and tried to pull her hands free.

"Awake at last."

Donna froze.

In the darkness she hadn't realised there was a high backed swivel chair in front of the matrix of computers, but as she watched a hand reached out from somewhere on the other side of the chair and turned a monitor so Donna could see it clearly, although it seemed to be blank.

Then without warning the chair spun round.

The man who rose from the chair was dressed in a completely black three piece suit, black gloves and black shoes. With about ten feet between them, it looked as though his head was floating in the air of it's own accord as his body blended with the darkness. He was tall and broad shouldered and was obviously in peak physical condition. He had light blond hair which was cut aggressively short, and his face could have been described as handsome if it wasn't so hard and cold and twisted with a cunning smirk. The eyes were concealed behind wraparound sunglasses, but it didn't seem to affect his ability to see, in spite of the darkness of the room.

Although this intimidating mans presence demanded attention, Donna couldn't help but be distracted by the monitor he'd turned to face her.

Somehow it seemed to be showing an image of the blond haired man's perspective. The screen showed Donna hanging from the ceiling, horribly mocking her predicament. She felt as though she might start weeping as she saw how helpless she was, but was more concerned by the monitor showing someone else chained to the roof. Donna looked to her left and saw Claire hanging limp and unconscious next to her, a painful cut on the side of her head.

"I see you were admiring 'Plant 47'?" the blond man spoke with a voice of ice. "It took five attempts to create this thing. The others couldn't survive the cramped conditions."

"What have you done to Claire?" Donna demanded in a voice that she hoped sounded defiant.

"Donna Noble, wasn't it?" the cold hearted man ignored her question. "I am Albert Wesker. I expect whoever sent you here told you about me."

"What have you done to Claire?"

"Nothing... yet."

Wesker strode forward till he stood in front of his captive, leering down at her in a way that could only be described as bestial. Donna would have cowered were she not held in place.

"So, you claim to be a geologist, and you came to Greenland to carry out an experiment?" Wesker's tone held an iota of sarcasm, although it remained determinedly cold. "Unlikely. I was thinking you must be from some specialist organisation; specially trained to fight B.O.W's. Not from the government; Leon Kennedy already represents them. A rival company perhaps? Maybe even my previous employers."

"I haven't come from any company!" Donna growled in Wesker's face.

He chuckled, then laid his hands heavily on Donna's shoulders, pushing down against the chains until her extracted a whimper from her.

"Well then," he held his face in front of hers "why don't you explain everything to me? I'm eager to learn. Particularly about our mutual friend 'The Doctor'. The man with two hearts and strangely low body temperature."

Donna didn't answer. She simply stared into her evil captor's face, which she noticed was horribly scared around the left eye, and tried not to show how afraid she was. She couldn't betray her knowledge of the Doctor to someone like Wesker, but she had no doubt that Wesker wouldn't hesitate to torture her for information.

"Hmm, you're brave." Wesker said thoughtfully. He lifted a hand to his face and removed his shades.

Donna couldn't help gasping. Wesker's right eye was coloured with demonic red encircling a bright yellow iris with a black slit for a pupil, like the eye of a cat or a snake. The left eye was missing, the scars and burns around the socket more disgusting now they could be seen clearly. In place of an eye was a camera lens, surrounded by a plastic rim and held in his face by who knows what.

Then Donna realised. She glanced over Wesker's shoulder and saw that the monitor she could see now displayed her own terrified face. A display of whatever Wesker saw through his mechanical eye.

"However," Wesker stood up straight, getting Donna's attention again "trying to resist me is not a good idea." he sounded as though he were addressing a disobedient child.

Wesker turned back to the computers. Despite being afraid, Donna happened to notice that Wesker covered his camera eye with one hand as he walk back to his desk, and didn't lower it until he'd turned the monitor so he couldn't see it.

"Right now, I need to check what exactly your friends are getting up to. I suggest you use your time to think carefully about what will happen if you don't cooperate with me." Wesker cast a sinister glance back at her. "While you do that, I've prepared a little, 'entertainment' for you."

Wesker tapped a few buttons and pulled a lever.

In the glass tank where 'Plant 47' idly waved, a hatch opened in the roof and something fell out of it.

It was hideous. It was human shaped, and that's where the similarity ended. It crawled on all fours, it's skinless body scraping the ground. It didn't seem to have any hands or feet as they seem to have been replaced with twelve inch claws. The head was a featureless blob except for a pinkish brain that was visible through the scalp, and a needle toothed mouth from which a long, whip like tongue danced about frantically. Where the nose and eyes should have been was just bloody flesh like the rest of it's body.

The creature barely had time to flip from lying on it's back to crouching, before a trio of vines snaked out and snared it. It howled and lashed out savagely, cutting one vine straight down the middle and impaling another with it's tongue, before more vines joined in and began to overpower the hapless beast.

Donna closed her eyes and turned away, feeling tears falling down her face as she was forced to listen to the obscene feeding frenzy.

* * *

The Doctor struggled furiously with the zombie clinging to his back. Unable to get a clear shot, Chris charged forward with the now empty mossberg shotgun and struck the monster in the head. It held on grimly and continued to try and bite the Doctor.

Then Leon rushed in to help.

"Chris! Pull it off him, NOW!" he shouted as he grabbed the Doctor by his shoulders. Chris quickly wrapped the shotgun round the thing's neck, and with grunts of effort they managed to pull them apart.

Leon and the Doctor tumbled head over heels while the zombie fell to the ground where Chris pinned it with the shotgun across it's neck and left arm.

"Jill! Get over here and shoot it!" Chris shouted over his shoulder.

"NO!"

The Doctor dived to his feet and lunged at Chris and his captive, grabbing hold of the zombie's arm to keep it still but preventing anyone from killing it.

"Don't be insane Doctor!" Chris shouted in the shorter man's face.

"No one is going to kill this person!" he shouted back, eyes blazing with fury.

"It's not a person Doctor, it's a zombie. Nothing can be done for him now" Jill said while trying to aim around the Doctor's head.

"We can't hold him down forever Doctor."

"Look at his uniform." The Doctor gestured quickly before renewing his grip on the rotten arm. "He's a security guard. We can get information from him."

"And how are you going to do that?"

In response, the Doctor braced his knees on the zombie's arm and gripped his hands around it's head. The creature gnashed it's teeth and writhed psychotically but the Doctor held on, eyes closed in concentration.

"What are you doing now?" Chris said in exasperation. The Doctor continued to ignore him.

Then, quite unexpectedly, the zombie spasmed and fell back, still alive but not struggling at all.

The Doctor opened his eyes and surveyed the thing with confusion, while everyone else surveyed him with astonishment.

"Oh dear, that's not right. No, not right at all." The Doctor said to himself, apparently unaware that his companions were looking at him as though he'd grown an additional head.

"What did you do to him Doctor?" Rebecca finally asked as she leaned over for a closer look.

"I was trying to increase his brain activity so we could talk to him sensibly," the Doctor explained "but by the look of it his brain power was never weak to start with. Now I've probably caused him permanent damage."

Chris looked at the twitching zombie and then at the Doctor.

"Are you trying to tell me you're a psychic or something?"

"Only a little." the Doctor chewed his bottom lip as he thought. "I'm going to try making his brain activity weaker. Chris, keep holding him."

The Doctor clamped his hands on the things head and began concentrating again.

Chris looked to the others, wondering if they were having any luck in making sense of what the Doctor was saying.

Then the zombie suddenly jerked and thrashed about again, and Chris nearly toppled over as it tried to grab him.

"How did you do th-" he started to shout, but stopped as again the zombie froze.

Then the monster rasped out a 'Whaaaa...' sound.

"What now?" Chris said, obviously losing patience.

"Whaaaaaaaaat..."

Everyone stopped.

"Did he just speak?" Jill asked uncertainly.

"Haaaaas..." the zombie continued to everyone's horror (except the Doctor of course) "happened toooo me?"

"My God; it's alive!" Rebecca gasped.

"_He_, was never dead in the first place. That's what you don't seem to understand." the Doctor said quickly, before saying gently to the zombie "Can you remember your name?"

"Vasant." it (or rather, _he_) said after a moments pause.

"Vasant? Vasant, I'm the Doctor; I'm here to help."

"No..." Vasant groaned and flailed about weakly. "You must... be... like... us."

He reached up and took hold of the Doctor's arm. The Doctor allowed the diseased man to lead his hand to his mouth, but pulled back when he tried to bite it.

"He wants us to be infected?" Jill exclaimed. The Survivors sent dark looks at the zombie as they saw the sense in her words. Normally the Doctor would say something clever to put them in their place, but at the moment he was too interested in Vasant.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked calmly.

"There... must be... more of us." Vasant struggled to get the words out. "I feel... not enough... dying..."

"You want to spread the T-virus? Why? And what do you mean 'not enough'?

"Not enough... like us. Must be more."

"Vasant, the T-virus is lethal; it can't be allowed to spread. Please, tell me everything you can about this base and I'll do everything I can to help you."

"No..." he hissed, his body squirming restless. "You... must... be... like..."

But Vasant didn't seem intent on finishing his sentence. He began growling and snarling, puffing out misty breaths like a bull.

"Vasant, concentrate!" The Doctor demanded. "You're name is Vasant. You work as a security guard in an underground laboratory in Greenland. Concentrate on that!"

"Vas... ant... G... land..."

"Where would they keep a sample of the original Mother Virus?" the Doctor asked desperately.

For a second, a light of clarity sparked in the guards eyes.

"Labs... under the... foundation support... level..."

But it vanished as quickly as it had come.

The zombie roared and shot bolt upright. It seized the Doctor's throat in it's claws and tried to bite his face.

A single shot barked out, and the zombie fell back with his skull mashed by the parabellum bullet.

The Doctor looked to Chris, who predictably was holding a smoking pistol.

"WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?" he shouted in outrage.

"What- you mean apart from saving your life?" Chris replied in angry disbelief.

"It was _him_ who needed saving! Didn't you learn anything from what he said? Those people who are infected with the T-virus believe they're dying out; that's why they're trying to spread it. He could have been helped. We could have cured him. He was a living human being and you _killed him_!"

"I don't know how you got him speaking, but you said yourself he probably had brain damage from what you did to him. How did you do that Doctor? And just who are you?"

The Doctor regarded all the suspicious faces that looked at him and said "I'm the Doctor. I helped that man to come to his senses by using my head, and I didn't come here to get revenge or vent my anger for anything previously done by Wesker or Umbrella!"

Everyone looked taken aback by the statement, so the Doctor quickly continued.

"And when you first told me what _you _were doing here, I assumed you were doing it for a decent cause, not for yourselves. So you all better rethink your reasons for being here, because I'm going back in that lab, and when I go in there I'm going to be going to try and save people's lives and stopping the T-virus from spreading to anyone ever again!"

A moments silence while everyone took this in. Internally, the Doctor was pleased to see that everyone looked suitably humbled by his little speech, but there was something wrong.

"By the way, where's Leon?"

Everyone looked around, but there was no sign of him.

"Maybe he went back to the plane?" Rebecca suggested.

"There's nothing left in the plane. We've got everything here." Jill countered.

"I think I know where he's gone," the Doctor drew all attention back to himself as he searched his pockets furiously "but I really hope I'm wrong."

* * *

The last thing the Doctor had used his 'sonic screwdriver' for was to open a locked fire escape door that had allowed him and the Survivors to reach the surface. And from his demonstration with the hunters, turning the base of the light bulb would make it do the opposite of whatever it had been set to do. That was all Leon needed to make his way into the lab.

He hated to go behind his friends' backs, but he was a government agent first and foremost, and he had a mission to complete.

_'It's __their own fault for trusting the Doctor,'_ he assured himself _'don't they realise a guy like that is too dangerous to be on the loose?'_

Leon hadn't trusted the Doctor from the start, but the fact he was planning to destroy the T-virus was too much to take. When it had just been him and the Survivors, he'd been prepared to help them as he knew it would be easy to steal research samples without their noticing. But if the Doctor really intended to make something that would kill the T-virus, it was time to go it alone, and with the Doctor's sonic screwdriver exchanged with a microphone bug when he'd grabbed the man to pull him away from the zombie, not only did he have the ultimate lock pick, but he'd also heard the Doctor's interrogation of 'Vasant' and knew where to find the Mother virus.

He grinned as he zapped the sealed door to the lab he'd found. Having memorised the map and used the screwdriver to open any door he'd found, he'd already gotten past the foundation support floor where the hunters were lurking and had found a floor filled with labs, just like Vasant said.

"Thinks he's a genius, huh?" he said to himself as the big metal doors began to lower into the floor. "The guy's nothing more than a know-it-all son of a b-"

A huge gaping maw bristling with teeth shot from within the lab, razor mandibles snapping like a mouse trap.


	7. Chapter 7

"Oh dear," Wesker chuckled "It looks like Leon Kennedy has met with a nasty 'accident'. And it looks like the rest of the Survivors are heading the same way."

He grinned in eager anticipation of the coming defeat of his enemies. Without waiting for Donna to reply, he pressed a button on a console to his right, and listened almost joyfully as a pathetically unimportant, half zombified lab assistant fell screaming into the tank with 'Plant 47'.

* * *

The Doctor dived down the stairs three at a time, his inhuman stamina easily outpacing his military companions. A few times they called to him but he ignored them, determined to let nothing slow him down. Now that Leon had stolen the sonic screwdriver (to his utter humiliation), it had taken twice as long as they'd planned to get to the Mother virus laboratory as Leon had made sure to seal all the doors behind him, forcing them to use the opposite side of the base to travel down. This inevitably involved the Survivors shooting a path through zombie infested corridors, and with the situation so desperate they simply ignored the Doctor's objections.

Unsurprisingly, the Time Lord was in a really foul mood.

A door yawned open automatically as he approached. He stopped dead as he was confronted with a wall of solid darkness, until a motion sensitive light flickered on a few steps in front of him. It cast a single shaft of light in a cone that was only just big enough for someone to stand in. The floor it revealed was made of dull green plastic slates, featureless except for small holes in the corners of each square, possibly for releasing gas. The slates sent a soft reflection into the Doctor's eye, until his lack of movement cause the light to go off.

"Finally you slow down." Chris huffed as he stopped next to the Doctor, closely followed by Jill and Rebecca.

"Well it's not like you missed anything." The Doctor muttered.

He stepped out of the stairwell, causing the two nearest motion sensitive lights to turn on.

"Be careful. There could be traps." Jill warned.

"Well then," the Doctor reached into his pocket "let's have some light."

He took a cricket ball from his pocket and rolled it down the hallway, causing a trail of lights to pursue the ball until it thunked against a vertical surface.

The roof and floor were all green tiles. To either side of the doorway the Doctor had just stepped through were a pair of labs pressed into the very corners of the room, with glass walls keeping them airtight. It was difficult to see what was in the labs as the lights in them were too far from the cricket ball to have turned on, but they appeared to be empty except for several tubes connected to the roof, walls and floor. The corridor ahead became a T-junction, branching left and right to skirt the glass walls of a particularly big lab in the middle of the room. It was difficult to see beyond that as all the lights seemed to have a very limited sensor range, but from what they could see it appeared that the rest of the room was filled with more glass box labs set against the walls.

"Looks like the place." Chris said grimly. The Doctor didn't reply.

"Why is it so dark in here?" Rebecca asked as the lights petered out.

"Hopefully, it's because Wesker's set this up as some horrible trick to keep us scared," the Doctor droned as he pulled his torch from his pocket "but I've got a nasty feeling that it's because something's hiding in here."

Tension filled the air immediately. The Doctor led the way, his torch illuminating the path ahead. The Survivors spread out slightly to cover the room with their weapons, but like moths drawn to a lamp they stayed close to the beams that fell at the Doctor's feet.

A wide metal door that stretched from floor to ceiling was the entrance to the middle lab. The gaze of the torch searched the glass around the door. All they could see of the interior was a table holding some flasks and test tubes.

"It's colder in here." Rebecca complained nervously.

"Maybe there's some cryogenic storage around?" said Jill.

As the Doctor reached the door he crouched down and retrieved his cricket ball. With the light above on and his face only centimetres from the door, he noticed a cover on the door frame. Reaching for it, he found it open outwards to reveal a number pad that glowed with a radioactive green.

"Our way in." the Doctor muttered as he began studying it.

"It's going to take a long time to open the door if we just guess the code." Jill said. "If you can break it open I might be able to short circuit the lock."

"No need." The Doctor began stroking the number pad. "Just need to check which numbers have been used the most by feeling how smoothly they move when gently pushed. Then a quick calculation to decide which is the most likely combination."

Everyone fell silent as the Doctor examined the lock and muttered equations under his breath. However bizarre it sounded, they'd realised it was pointless trying to work out the Doctor, although Rebecca looked bewildered.

In the crushing darkness the silence quickly became uncomfortable.

"Shouldn't we go round this lab and look though the glass before we go in?" Chris eventually asked as he reached for his own torch, only to find that it was broken anyway.

"Doesn't matter, I've got it." the Doctor said as he punched in the number.

"But what if there's something dangerous in there?"

The door lowered into the floor. The Doctor aimed his torch inside as everyone looked to see what they'd found.

A patch of lights burst into life as something in the room writhed. It looked like a coiled tree truck, but then it uncoiled in a flash and rose all the way to the roof. It was the length of five men standing on top of each other, hunching to fit in the cramped conditions. It's bark brown body was a bumpy exoskeleton, dry as a bone and hard as rock. It's base which was firmly squeezed against the floor was uncovered by the tough exterior, but was nothing more than a formless blob of pale red meat; a shapeless muscle keeping it in place.

Where a head should have been, there was another opening in the exoskeleton. A diabolical mess of antennas, slime, lumpy flesh and spiky teeth poked out the top, giving off a ghastly smell. Two massive pincers gnashed the air, and a high pitched squeal rasped from within the shell.

Then it lunged.

Everyone threw themselves back. Chris kicked out at the number pad as hard as he could.

The door zoomed up out of the floor and slammed the monstrous head against the roof, then jammed, unable to break the beast's tough shell.

It roared and twisted in fury, buckling the door under it's weight.

"What is that?" an appalled voice cried out.

"It looks like a blend of centipede and earthworm," the Doctor was quickly back on his feet "and it's been _massively_ mutated."

The beast roared again, then threw itself against the door with all it's strength. The steel barrier practically collapsed, but jammed against the floor where it had risen from. The number pad sparked and the glow went out, followed by the lights. There was a clang as the doors to that section slammed shut in emergency response to the power short out.

That left the Doctor and the Survivors trapped in the bitterly cold room with no lights except a few torches and a vast monster that was squeezing it's way out of the central lab through the gap in the door.

There was no need to shout an order. Everyone scattered as the deadly creature thudded to the floor. The Doctor threw his torch back towards the door to the stairwell as he ran blindly round the corner of the main lab, hoping beyond hope the thing would be distracted by the light. Thankfully it was, and it slithered towards the light rather than after the people in the room (at least he assumed it did, as he couldn't see anything).

The Doctor quickly felt he way along the corridor, trying to come up with a plan. There was a sudden roar from the centipede/worm. The light from the Doctor's torch went out with a crunch, followed by a smash as the creature ploughed into one of the glass walled labs by the door. The Doctor just managed to fall through the door of another lab as glass shrapnel peppered the hallway he was in. A quick assessment of the lab using only his hands and nose revealed that it was actually an office, complete air conditioning, a swivel chair and a very inviting desk to hide behind.

The sound of the monster's body scraping against the floor was like a deep groaning. The Doctor stayed still and silent as it passed the office he cowered in.

_'Fine example I'm setting.'_ he thought

He peeped his head above the desk, wondering if he should give chase.

A groaning noise filled the air again, but this one was coming from the somewhere under the floor and was much deeper. An explanation was soon provided by an electronic female voice.

**"Power has been restored to lab section six, floor twenty-six. The doors will be released in five minutes."**

The groaned died down and became a soft hum. Apart from that the room was completely silent.

The Doctor stayed rigidly still, trying to sense anything that might give him a clue as to what was going on. But there was no whispering voices, no shuffle of feet, and it was so dark he couldn't see his own hand in front of his face.

Despite the situation, the Doctor couldn't help but take a moment to reflect.

Humans and Time Lords. So different, yet in some ways so alike. For all their vast knowledge, Time Lords weren't above being afraid of the dark and weren't above allowing fear to make them act irrationally. And humans; true, it took generations to think up even the simplest of things, but their potential stretched beyond that of almost all species in the universe. It was just a shame that it was in their nature to fall short of all that they could be.

Regardless, the Doctor was glad that, literally and metaphorically, he wasn't facing this monster alone. His thoughts turned to Donna, wishing she were there with him now, stomach slightly churning at the thought of what she might be enduring right at that moment without him.

Something distracted him from his own thoughts. A light blinked on. He could see through the glass walls of the central lab that a light had appeared out of the gloom in another glass lab set against the opposite wall and slightly to the right of where the Doctor was crouching. He couldn't make out any details as the light revealed a big, rectangular, cryogenic container in the central lab that was spilling fog into the room and blocking out the view.

The Doctor only had a moment to realise that the motion sensitive lights must be working again before a shrill shriek filled the room and the groaning of the monster's movements began again.

The Doctor glared around, watching for the tell-tale lights that would reveal the beast's location so he could shout a warning. But no lights came on. Then there was the smashing of glass, and Chris's voice yelled out in pain at the same time as the light was smothered out.

"IT'S ON THE ROOF!" the Doctor shouted as he charged out of the office and down the path the thing had crawled along just a minute ago. He quickly rounded the corners of the middle lab and came up behind the part arthropod, part annelid creature, running into Rebecca as a result.

"It's got Chris!" she cried in horror pointing in the darkened general direction of where Chris had taken refuge.

"This whole place is a trap!" the Doctor quickly summarised, looking down and pointing out the little holes in the floor.

"Those holes must be used to hide the motion sensors, that why they have such a short range. And that way that thing can crawl about on the roof and not turn any lights on. Perfect for sneaking up on people.

"What do we do!"

As if in answer to Rebecca's question, lights at the opposite end of the corridor flashed on. Jill stood highlighted in front of the airtight corner room, a glint in her eye and an M79 grenade launcher in her hands.

The Doctor grabbed Rebecca and hurled both of them into the doorway she'd just come through, just as Jill fired a shot at the middle of the creature's body.

A burst of light and a solid wall of sound and super heated air rolled throughout the room, cracking reinforced glass walls and sending wreckage dancing down the passageway.

The Doctor sprang back to his feet, braining himself on a crane like arm that held a lamp over a stretcher. He flicked it on, finding that he was in an operating room, and grabbed some things he might need; a syringe and a scalpel.

He dived out of the room and was confronted by the sight of the vast monstrosity thrashing about on the floor, jagged legs reaching out for something to grip. At it's head, Jill was helping Chris to get away from the deadly mouth. Behind her in the glass box in the corner of the room, the tubes coming from the walls were spraying green gas into the air.

"Jill, what's going on down there?" the Doctor called.

"It's anti-B.O.W gas. It cripples bio organic weapons like this thing."

"Oh good thinking." the Doctor sounded genuinely impressed. "Okay, let's have a look at this thing then."

"The gas only works for a short time." Chris warned. "After a minute it adapts to it and gets stronger. We've gotta kill this thing _now_!"

He drew his colt python as Jill unslung her AK-47.

The bulky monster rolled itself upright, showing that it's shell had only been scotched by the grenade attack. Before anyone could fire it struck out. It missed Chris and Jill by the slightest of chances but managed to bite the kalashnikov in half. Chris fired off one shot before both he and Jill were forced to run clear of a second attack.

"Anti-B.O.W gas makes it stronger after time," the Doctor murmured, oblivious to the unfolding drama in front of him "Of course. THAT'S BRILLIANT!"

He sprinted down the corridor just as the adversary crawled round the corner in pursuit of Chris and Jill. The Doctor ran into the room with the anti-B.O.W gas and began sucking the green air into the syringe.

"I've been saying it from the start," he explained as Rebecca arrived at his side "the mother virus and T-virus causes mutations that are supposed to help living creatures, not make them into monsters. It's mutating to protect itself from this gas, and that's our chance."

"Chance for what?" Rebecca asked as she looked towards the battle that was taking place.

"Right now that mutant is reforming it's own body. It's crawling with active regenerative genes." the Doctor explained, getting excessively excited with his own cleverness. "Right now they're already calming down, but if I can inject this gas close to it's heart they'll defiantly start up again. That'll be the best moment to use first aid spray on it. We can't just leave it like this; it's obviously been driven insane by it's ordeal. As long as it's alive it will kill anything it comes into contact with."

"So we'll have to kill _it_." Rebecca concluded as she took a can of first aid spray from her combat webbing. "Right, let's do it."

The young medic led the way to the rear of the foul creature. Chris and Jill had managed to hold it off by taking cover in separate labs and shooting at it from two different directions.

"I wish I could do something to help the poor thing," the Doctor said in a guilty tone, looking reluctantly at the syringe "but I know there's nothing I can do about it."

"And if you don't help us kill it then two people will die and they'll be no one to save Claire or Donna!" Rebecca exclaimed angrily, unable to believe the Doctor would care so much about a twisted killing machine. "Just think of a way we can break open that shell." She aimed her sub machine gun at it.

"That won't do any good." he pushed the gun aside and stepped forward. "It would take several hundred bullets just to dent it. If only I had the sonic screwdriver; a sonically charged object could shatter just about anything just by being thrown at it. Still, there's always plan B."

Before Rebecca could ask the obvious 'What's plan B?' the Doctor took a running jump and dived on the back of the monster

* * *

Chris watched in astonishment as the Doctor landed on the vast mid section of the giant hybrid.

"Are you crazy Doctor! You'll get yourself killed!"

The Doctor didn't answer. He was too busy concentrating on the bucking creature to listen. It howled furiously and kept trying to hurl the man from it's back, but he hung on grimly.

"He's got guts, I'll give him that." replied Jill in a tone that resembled awe.

With a particularly powerful throw, the Doctor was dislodged and chucked into an office.

"Yeah, we'll probably get to see 'em in a minute."

The bug/worm craned it's head back to look for the Doctor. It crammed it's head in the doorway the Doctor had just gone through, it's grasping mandibles snapping in anger. Instantly the Doctor sprang forward and hefted himself onto one of the limb like claws.

"Rebecca!" he yelled, leaning out the doorway and tossing a syringe filled with anti-B.O.W gas to the youngest S.T.A.R.S member. "When you get the chance, inject that into the middle of it's body on the underside."

The Doctor reached out with a scalpel in one hand and began dissecting away at something of the side of the creature's head, ignoring the danger from it's teeth. The beast roared and squirmed but had managed to jam itself in that part of the hall and was unable to retreat.

"Rebecca, what's going on?" Jill shouted over the roars.

"The Doctor says if we inject this gas into its heart we can use the spray to kill it."

"How can we inject it into it's heart with that shell protecting it?"

There was a cry of triumph from the Doctor, and a corresponding wail from the monster as it's unbreakable shell broke into segments and dangled loosely from it's body.

"YES! A shell attached to the body via a complex arrangement of muscle tissue with nerve endings connected by tendons skirting the neck to sense the path ahead and allow the muscles to bend the shell to get round any corner." the beast wriggled wildly but the Doctor continued. "Brilliant! Fantastic! The work that's gone into this thing is incredible. Except for the fact that it's easy to separate the muscles from the nerve endings and break up the whole structure. Shame all this work had to be misused like this; it would revolutionise medicine and science if it was put-"

The monster shot through the doorway, breaking the glass as it went and shrugging off the shell that had denied it's access just a second ago.

"AHH!" the Doctor cried out as he was caught in the huge pincers.

The monster retracted it's shell-less body, texture of soggy paper and colour of dried blood, and threw the Doctor to the floor.

Both Chris and Jill let rip with a volley of gun fire, forcing the worm like beast to rear back in pain as the bullets slapped wetly into it's defenceless body.

Then Rebecca appeared out of nowhere and stabbed the syringe into the thing's belly and thumbed the plunger.

The part centipede part worm let out a gasp, and then collapsed to the floor, the Doctor only just managing to get clear in time.

"It's recovering; now's our chance!" he shouted.

"Let me take care of this." Chris said as he raised his magnum. The Doctor waved his hands in exasperation and yelled about how it was the first aid spray that would do the job, but this time Chris was a step ahead of him.

With his free hand, Chris lobbed a full first aid box into the creature's mouth. The container holding three first aid sprays caught on it's thin teeth. Chris pulled the trigger, and Barry's magnum jumped in his hand as a .357 bullet sped it's way towards the thin metal of the aerosols.

Even as Chris fired the second bullet the beast was screaming. It bulldozered it's way down the corridor, knocking over everyone in it's path. As they watched it crawl round to the other side of the room, steam and milky white fluid begining to flow from it's mouth and wounds. It whipped it's body back and forth, smashing open even the armoured glass of the central lab as a result. Then it's body seemed to warp violently, swelling or contracting in places, skin rippling so much it look like it was moving across the monster's flesh.

Then it calmed, and it's flesh began to shrivel and melt away. In under a minute, the twisted remains of the massive centipede/worm mutant was a pasty pile of meat that wouldn't have filled an oil drum.

Everyone gaped in shock. The silence hung thick in the air, till it was broken by the sound of Rebecca being sick.

Jill walked over to help her younger comrade, while Chris and the Doctor moved to investigate the remains.

"Not exactly what I had in mind." the Doctor said. "Looks as though the regenerative genes and the first aid spray variant are more similar than I thought. The built up of genes must have been like a tumour developing. And the only way the virus could cure a tumour is to trigger apoptosis."

" 'A' what?" Chris asked sceptically.

"Cells committing suicide. And with regenerative genes highly active in ever part of the body in response to the gas and the rest of the cells being so similar, the whole thing accidently followed through. Dissolved from within."

Jill and Rebecca joined them.

"Let's just do what we came to do and get out of here." Jill said uneasily. Rebecca failed to offer an opinion, but the look on her face showed that she agreed.

"I don't think it'll be as easy as that." Chris said as stepped through the broken glass into the central lab. "This cryogenic cabinet is open," he looked into the frosty container "and it's empty! There's nothing here!"

"But I've got a good idea where it's all gone." The Doctor said as he fished something out of the remains of the B.O.W.

* * *

The screen fuzzed with static and the picture was lost. Wesker was seriously close to losing his cool. When this 'Doctor' had first arrived, something had started scrambling the security devices in the area he was in, allowing the Doctor to move around the base without being tracked. When he and the Survivors re-entered the scrambling had abruptly stopped, and he discovered that Agent Kennedy had made it to the mother virus lab. But now twenty minutes later the interference had started again and he'd lost track of all of them. At this rate they make it to the lower levels in no time, and while he knew they would never survive a battle with him or the more powerful B.O.W's, their deaths would be a small consolation if they had the opportunity to sabotage the Union project.

If Wesker was honest, the thing that was really winding him up at the moment was Donna Noble. He'd put a scare into her when she'd first regained consciousness and had thought that questioning her would be easy. However, now that she'd had a chance to pull herself together, he found that both questioning and intimidating her wasn't going to be as straightforward as he'd thought. When he'd tried firing questions at her, she just scowled, and the more angry he sounded the more pronounced the scowl became. When he'd tried threatening her, she put on a brave face and tried to ignore him, whether he was pointing a gun at her or feeding another specimen to 'Plant 47'. When the Survivors had begun fighting the hybrid on the mid-level he'd approached her again.

"There's no point denying you're afraid," he'd whispered as he circled behind her, pushing his head into the crook of her neck and enjoying the feel of her involuntary shudder "I can _smell_ the fear on your very skin."

His hopes that a disturbing little mind game might loosen her tongue were dashed as she turned away from him and muttered in a disapproving voice "Perve...'

It wasn't so much that she was brave or had some unshakable faith to cling to. She was just too damn stubborn to get the better of. Generally it was better to get a person to give up information willingly rather than force it out of them through torture, but he was losing patience with the English girl and probably would have already started tormenting her were he not so preoccupied with keeping the base running while trying to catch the other intruders. At any rate, he called in the beast which had been responsible for capturing Donna and Claire in the first place with the intention of sending it after his remaining adversaries. If only he could just get an idea of where they were heading next.

Donna hung limply from the chains. After being held in place for so long her muscles didn't have the strength to hold her up. She considered shouting a few more distractions at the back of Wesker's head, but then decided against it. She'd already been pushing her luck with him and now that... that..._ thing_, had arrived she didn't want to see him lose his temper and possibly set it on her. Instead she did her best to look out for... well, anything that could be useful to look out for. Already she had a good idea of what Wesker's password was; no doubt it'd be useful to the Doctor, if he ever got there.

_'Where the heck is he?'_ in her frustration she nearly said it out loud. Since Wesker was so tetchy, she was certain the Time Lord must be alright, but for how long? And what good would that do her if she wound up as one of this insane sadist's experiments? Poisoned, chopped into bite sized chunks and pickled in half a dozen jars wasn't exactly what she been expecting when she'd jumped aboard the TARDIS with six suitcases and hat box.

_'Please find me Doctor.'_ she thought nervously.

**"Treatment test complete." **an electronic woman's voice blurted from one of Wesker's computers. **"Vacuum and low gravity tests complete. Union virus remains unchanged. Phase one of 'Operation Union' is ready to begin."**

Union virus? Donna had no idea of what exactly was going on, but it didn't sound good.

"The tests are a success," Wesker said. For a moment Donna thought he was talking to her again, but before she could reply he turned to the hulking brute that was standing to one side. It could understand him?

"That means no more T/V samples needed. You are now expendable. Go to the upper levels, and don't come back till all intruders are dead or incapacitated."

Without a word, the dinosaur-like being left the room through a sliding door on the left side of the room. Donna could see it's outline as it stalked through the arena on the other side of the huge window.

There was a small noise from Claire. Donna's eyes shot to the young girl, followed by a cautious look towards Wesker. Fortunately he seemed wrapped up in something on the computer that had just spoken.

"Claire," she hissed. "Are you alright?"

Claire raised her head and looked and Donna despairingly.

"Alright? With that monster that attacked us in here?"

"It's alright; it's gone- wait. How long have been awake?"

"Long enough to see it."

"Why didn't you say something?" Donna's temper flared. "I've been worried sick about you!"

"It's him."

"Who?"

"Steve Burnside. The boy who saved my life."

Donna deflated like a balloon on a Tyrant's claw. She looked out the window again at the lumpy shape that stomped across the steel floor.

"I...Claire..." Donna stammered, words caught in her throat. "I...I'm so sorry."

"I didn't think it would really happen. I thought he was dead and gone. I never thought he have to be that...thing ever again."

Claire gave a small sob, and Donna's heart nearly broke.

Wesker's head twitched away from his work.

"Did I just hear something from over there?" he asked without looking round. Donna looked towards him and hurriedly devised an excuse.

"Yeah, I was just saying I've found two snowflakes that look exactly the same. Wanna have a look?"

Wesker hissed lightly, like an irritable snake, and turned back to his work.

Crisis averted, Donna looked at Claire whose head had fallen onto her chest again, and said "Look, my friend the Doctor- he's a genius. He might be able to help Steve."

"Help?" Claire's head bobbed against her chest as she gave a false laugh. "There's no human left in that thing. Steve's mind is gone, and now Wesker's using his body as a sick experiment. He's gone, completely."

"We can still try and help him, but first we've got to get free. Wesker's working on something at the moment and it doesn't sound good."

"What's the point? Every time someone has tried to stop Wesker he's won. And he'll kill us eventually. It's all hopeless."

"Don't talk like that!" Donna struggled to stay quite as her temper rose up like a storm. "We've got this far- this is no time to give up. You wanna see Mr 'Oh look, I'm so cool cos' I gel my hair and wear dark glasses indoors' to get the better of you? If the Doctor was here I know what he'd say."

"But he isn't here, and if you can only cope when he's around then we don't have much of a chance."

The words stung, but Donna decided to put it down to grief and ignored it.

"I-WE, can cope without the Doctor, but even though half the time he acts like an idiot he's right about some things. Remember what he said to your brother when we first met. That he'd have the perfect opportunity if he could get to the control centre of the base. We _are_ in the control centre. Wesker may have beaten you before, but if we can get free we'll have an advantage you didn't have. And whether we can help Steve or not, what about Chris and the others, and the Doctor. We got to do it for them as well."

Claire seemed to take some heart from Donna's words. Donna herself seemed quite surprised by her own words. Travelling with the Doctor was apparently making her smarter.

"I'm sorry," Claire looked up. There were fresh tears on her face but she seemed to be holding together. Donna hated to see her having to deal with things like this. The poor girl should be back home, going to the pub or shopping for clothes, or anything that the old Donna Noble would probably be doing if the Doctor hadn't crash landed into her life. Not chained to the roof of a mad scientist's laboratory witnessing the mess that used to be her boyfriend being ordered around like a slave.

"You're right. We got to do something while we have the chance." Claire looked up at her bound hands. "Any idea how we escape?"

"Maybe..." Donna's face contorted with effort. Claire watched her in concerned confusion. Then Donna very, _very_ slowly became to hoist herself up on the chains. She grunted with pain, and Claire tensed as she thought Wesker must have heard, but fortunately he seemed engrossed with whatever he was doing.

Donna lifted herself till her head came into contact with her hands. The hands shuffled for a moment, and then she began to lower herself again. After lowing by about two centimetres she fell the rest of the way and something cracked. Donna resisted crying out but swore savagely under her breath.

"You alright?" Claire winced.

"Yeah, never better. Least now I might fit into that long sleeved jacket mum bought me." Donna squirmed uncomfortably. "Anyway, look at this."

Claire looked up at Donna's gesturing hands. There was a sliver of metal clasped between her fingers. It took Claire a moment before she realised what it was. A hairpin.

"You any good with a lock pick?" Donna asked.

Claire looked her fellow captive dead in the eye, and a mischievous grin slapped itself on her face.

"Just watch me." she replied

* * *

"There," the Doctor finally finished with the sonic screwdriver and put it back in his pocket "that frequency should make it a lot more difficult for Wesker to track us."

"You sure that monster didn't just eat Leon as well?" Jill asked.

'Absolutely. I could only see the remains of a hand along with the screwdriver. Plus there had to be someone to steal the mother virus sample and to lock the bugzilla in there."

"So the monster bit his hand off but he managed to escape?" Rebecca asked doubtfully.

"It could happen." the Doctor said defensively. "Leon's not a regular soldier; I knew that as soon as I clapped eyes on him. Anyone know what he trained as?"

"Special government agent, Claire said." Chris put in.

"Government agent." the Doctor groaned. "If only I'd known that before, I'd have been on guard then. Government agents are the worst for interfering."

"Never mind that. What now?"

The Doctor considered.

"It could take us hours to try and find Leon, and Donna and Claire can't wait that long. We'll have to forget about the mother virus and keep heading down to find Wesker."

"And what about finding a T-virus antidote?" asked Rebecca.

The Doctor looked at her grimly and replied "Donna has to come first. I've left her down there for far too long."

"Besides, maybe we'll run into Leon on the way." Chris added.

"Either way, we'd best be off."

With that, the Doctor led the way to a door at the opposite end of the room.

* * *

Further down in the lab, Leon gazed in horror at his new arm.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Man, how did this chapter get so long? Sorry for the delay**_

* * *

_'What the hell has happened to my arm! I saw that freak bite it off- have I been infected? Am I going to turn into a zombie? Or a tyrant? I've got to get up top and find some transport. My only chance is to get back. Maybe they can make some sort of cure..._

_Damn! I am _not _going to trust the Doctor to make a cure. He's dangerous. I swear if I see him again I'll finish him off once and for all.'_

* * *

_'The Union Project is almost ready. In a few minutes it'll ready to be used at any time. Who'd have thought that the mother virus could be used in such a useful __way? Within a week I'll have revolutionised the entire world. The only thing I have to worry about now is the Survivors and the Doctor._

_Who is- what is he anyway? He has two hearts for God's sake! If I didn't know better I'd say he was a B.O.W sent by a rival of mine, but who has the ability to create such an advanced creature? He's like nothing I've ever seen before. Well, hopefully that wretched T-Veronica beast will be able to kill off some of the Survivors before the Doctor gets the better of him too. And then all I'll need to do is take him alive and introduce him to the union virus; then maybe I'll get some answers. And with his friend as my prisoner it shouldn't be too difficult to make him cooperate.'_

* * *

_'I just can't believe this. How did I end up in this situation? It's not like I go looking for trouble. Well, I went looking for the Doctor; that amounts to the same thing I guess. I just wish I knew where the heck he's gone. He wouldn't leave me down here, not even to save the world from sound weird, alieny, ultimate destruction of the earth. He's coming to get me as soon as possible. Right?_

_..._

_Oh flip! I can't rely on him (we'll not entirely). I've just got to hope Claire can get these chains undone and we can escape somehow. Honestly, I've no idea what we'll do if we do escape. I don't have a clue how we could help just because we're in Al's bedroom. The only thing I really want to do is make sure Claire gets out of here all right. She's tough, but I can tell all this is getting to her, bad. As for Steve, obviously he'll kill us sooner that look at us if we wander in to him. I guess it'll be up to the Doctor to see if we can help him._

_Flip! Why is it I always seem to get stuck unless the Doctor's around to help? There must be something I can do...'_

* * *

_'I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I need to keep these three safe, but they keep on getting into fights with the infected creatures down here. That last fight with the frog monster was a near miss, and I notice they didn't thank me for saving the day (although I shouldn't be surprised. Pinching that blasted grenade launcher and letting that thing eat it and get indigestion is bound to annoy them, though why they still think they need guns is anyone's guess)._

_Then of course, there's the creatures themselves. The more I see of this virus the more I get the feeling it's too late to save those already infected. But before I jump to any conclusions I've got to have a look at that mother virus, the one that started it all. Even if I can't cure people, maybe I can make a vaccine or something to stop it spreading. But there's still something about it I'm not getting. If the mother virus is really supposed to benefit those it infects, why do they become crazed killing machines? From what I've learned the only real difference between the mother and the T-virus is that 'T' is more contagious and more often causes cellular deterioration instead of mutation. That doesn't account for psychopathic instincts._

_And Wesker- he's living proof that these viruses aren't for destroying life but for making it stronger. Which brings me to the problem of how to deal with him. He won't be easy to fight _or _outsmart, so me and the Survivors are both at a loose end with him. Maybe a dose first aid spray might be able to overpower him, because other than that I don't know how I'm 'sposed to stop him._

_And most importantly, Donna. She's been out of my sight far too long. I doubt Claire would have been able to do much if they were attacked. What if she's been hurt, or killed- no, mustn't think like that. All that matters at the moment is finding her. I can't give up on her now, or Claire for that matter. There's still a good chance they're alright, and I'm not gonna stop till I know for certain. In fact, the only thing I should be worried about is how hard Donna's going to slap me when I finally do rescue her.'_

_

* * *

_

"Chris, tell me something."

Chris looked at Jill. The Doctor was a few feet in front of them, fiddling with the remote which he called a sonic screwdriver. He claimed that it could somehow detect recent chemical reactions and could trace Leon by the blood on his wounds clotting. Rebecca, who seemed more fascinated than perturbed by the Doctor's antics was next to him, firing questions about both the screwdriver and the Doctor's knowledge of chemistry and biology. The Doctor, although often saying things like 'Don't worry; you wouldn't understand' seemed remarkably pleased with Rebecca's curiosity, like a teacher who'd discovered an exceptionally bright student, and answered her questions enthusiastically.

"What?" asked Chris.

"I know we've been following this guy around for nearly half an hour," Jill whispered "but do you _really_ think we can trust him?"

"Yes," Chris answered without hesitation "I think he's alright."

"He's too weird. Why won't he tell us his name? And how does he know so much about what's going on down here?"

"What d'you mean by that?"

"Think about it- he took out about twenty hunters, got the lifts and doors working and found a way to kill B.O.W's easily. How do we know he's not some sort of special agent from another bio-weapons company or a government who wants to get their hands on the T-virus?"

"He saved our lives didn't he? And how many special agents do you know that are pacifists?"

"He could be keeping us alive to help him get through the lab so he can get virus samples. If he's not an agent, why is he here? Do you think it's more likely that he just wandered in here by accident and decided he should help stop the T-virus for the good of mankind?"

Chris looked at the Doctor. Jill was right, of course. The most logical explanation was that the Doctor had come to the hidden lab for a purpose directly relating to the T-virus. Yet he just didn't seem like it.

Chris felt irritated with himself for thinking in such a way. If he learned anything from his experiences since the Spencer mansion incident, it was that you couldn't judge anything on outward appearances. But he just could not imagine the Doctor as a man with a far more sinister motive. His passionate hate of violence, his abhorrence at the consequences of the T-virus infection, and his determination to put things right. It all seemed too real. As crazy as it sounded, the Doctor seemed as though he was honestly just trying to do some good in a bad place. And as for that woman Donna Noble- the very idea that she was an undercover spy was inconceivable. She wasn't a genius or a fighter, nor was she in any way subtle. She really did look as though she'd wandered in there by mistake.

So in spite of everything, he couldn't help but trust the Doctor. He realised, of course, that by doing so he was effectively putting his sister's life in the Doctor's hands, but again he didn't feel as though it was a bad thing. This strange man who seemed to have taken over their operation seemed like he was taking charge forcefully, but at the same time, almost reluctantly, as though he disliked the responsibility but accepted he could do more good leading than following. Chris might have thought him arrogant for this, except that he obviously valued everyone else's opinion as much as his own. It was hard not to respect someone like that.

"I trust him Jill." Chris said with certainty. "We can find out more about him later. Right now, we need to concentrate on finding the people who are missing down here."

Jill's hard eyes soften at this. Tentatively she took hold of Chris' hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"She'll be alright. She's a fighter, like you. It's just a matter of time before we find her."

Chris looked his closest friend in the eye, trusting her enough to be unconcerned if she saw how afraid he was for his sister.

"Thanks Jill. I'm sure you're right."

* * *

_'They make a cute couple,_' the Doctor thought dryly. Naturally he'd overheard the whispered conversation. He wasn't surprised they still didn't fully trust him, but he did feel a little hurt.

_'After saving their lives multiple times you'd think they'd cut me a little slack.'_

Chris was still talking with Jill, even though they started walking again, but by the look of it he was about to come over and speak with him.

_'In a way I suppose it's good that disaster brings people together. They're going to need each other after all this. And Claire's going to need her brother too.'_

At that point Chris moved up next to the Time Lord, and he was forced to abandon his thoughts.

"So Doctor, what exactly is your plan now?"

"First and foremost- Donna, Claire and Leon. We'll go through these floors with a fine tooth comb if we have to, and we're not going to stop till we find them."

"Sounds good to me, but what about Wesker?"

"As soon as I get the chance I'm going to try and make something stronger than first aid spray to tackle him with. I want to stop him but I _don't_ want to kill him. There's been enough death and violence today already."

"It'd be no less than he deserves."

"And how would you be better than him if you killed him?"

Chris looked at the Doctor sullenly.

"Apart from the fact that he's committed genocide against innocent people? Wesker's a monster."

"We're not going to kill him." the Doctor warned.

"That man is dangerous, even when he's dead. How can you care so much about keeping him alive?"

"Because the moment I stop caring about how important life is I become exactly like him, and I would have thought that after one look at what the T-virus does to people you'd appreciate the importance of human life too."

A furious Chris looked daggers at him. That was below the belt, and the Doctor knew it, but he had to get through to these people.

"I was once a soldier." that did surprise Chris. He looked at the Doctor as though he'd only just seen him for the first time.

"Well, I say soldier; it was a bit more complicated than that," the Doctor went on in a much less hostile tone "but it turned out the same. I saw countless people die. Both good and bad, and innocent." the Doctor looked blankly ahead of himself, almost unaware that he was speaking to someone, a someone who couldn't even begin to imagine the things that the last Time Lord was reliving.

"Don't get me wrong Chris, I know how it feels to be faced with an enemy and feel certain that the only good thing to do is to kill them; to feel certain in your own mind that their death is the only option. But killing is killing, no matter how necessary it might seem, and I learned that the hard way. Maybe you're right and the only way to stop Wesker is by killing him, but until we've explored all avenues we're going to look for an alternative. We've got to try. You might find it hard to believe Chris, but if you never give anyone a chance, you'll become something worse than a soldier and believe me, you'll regret it."

Chris took a moment to digest all this. The Doctor held his tongue now. He felt certain that Chris would at least try to let the Doctor end this without a fight.

"I'm sorry Doctor." now it was the Doctor's turn to be surprised. He looked at Chris with an uncertain frown, not sure if Chris was being serious or sarcastic.

"I thought you had no idea what it was like, facing things like this. I would have listened to you more if I'd known."

"And you trust that I'm telling truth?" the Doctor questioned light-heartedly.

Chris looked at the Doctor and quickly summed him up. Then he said "Yeah. I can't say why but I think I can trust you."

The Doctor smiled and said "Well that's good enough for now. We can do it you know. Wesker can be stopped and no one else has to die for it."

Chris looked doubtful, but nodded anyway.

"Well that's very profound."

Chris darted back a step in surprise. The pair had been so intent on their conversation they hadn't even noticed they'd passed several corridors branching off the one they were in, and the voice had come from the shadowy one they'd just come to. The Doctor turned to see who spoke, but his vision was obscured by the barrel of a pistol pointing in his face

* * *

Claire fell to the floor, heedless of the slight clank of the chains as she tried to massage the pain from her stretched limbs. Luckily Wesker was still too interested in his computer to take notice of his prisoners.

"Oi!" Donna whispered. "Hurry up and get me down."

Claire rose stiffly to her feet and reached up to release her friend. As she took hold of the manacles, however, she was distracted by a voice from the computer.

**'Intruder detected! Level thirty-three, administration sector four! Warning unauthorised computer access detected.'**

"Shit!" Wesker cursed furiously. For a terrifying moment Donna and Claire thought he was going to get up, but instead he leaned forward and pulled a smaller monitor over to himself, stretching it out on it's mechanical arm.

"Get to level thirty-three!" he shouted into a microphone "Kill anyone and anything you find up there!"

From where Donna and Claire were watching they could see that on the monitor the image was from the point of view of an unseen creature that was apparently loping along at break-neck speed down a passageway.

"We've got to hurry; it must be the others they're after!"

* * *

Leon was obviously not in a clear state of mind. His eyes were glazed over and he squinted painfully ahead of himself. He was half staggering and gasping for breath, and seemed aware of very little accept for the fact that the Doctor was standing in front of him. Worst of all, however, was his right arm.

The shirt sleeve had been ripped away. What should have been an ordinary arm was an abomination that would have made a bandersnach proud. It was a foot too long as twice as thick as the left arm. Powerful muscles bulged from the shoulder, reaching all the way down the right side of Leon's body and right leg, allowing him to bear the extra weight. The bright red arm was skinless and had a sheen that made it look as though it was wet. There were at least two extra joints on the forearm and upper arm, and the whole thing steamed slightly in the cold air. The hand was surprisingly small in comparison. It was soft and flabby, but held the pistol rock steady. The only other difference to it was small and pointy claws instead of finger nails.

"I knew I'd see you again, Doctor," he groaned out as he backed the doctor against a wall "just can't wait to take the mother virus for yourself, huh?"

"Leon," Chris interrupted "the Doctor is helping us. He's not an enemy."

"Too dangerous." Leon slurred, though whether he was answering Chris or just making a statement by coincidence was unclear.

"Alright Leon," the Doctor held up his hands in a placating fashion "no need to do anything rash. Speaking of rash I don't like the look of your arm."

Leon's left arm shot forward and hit the wall next to the Doctor's head, cracking the concrete.

"SHUT THE HELL UP!" he roared.

The others stepped forward as one, but Leon swung his pistol round without looking and pointed it directly at Chris who was nearest. The Doctor looked into Leon's eyes, wondering if he'd really kill them. He saw Leon's eyes had changed as well- toxic green and slit pupiled.

"Leon, you may have been infected but it might not be permanent. I can help you."

"You? I don't need help from you. When backup gets here they'll find a cure for this."

"What backup?" Chris asked.

"I contacted the anti-Umbrella department of SOCOM through a computer in one of the offices. They've got all the details of where to find this place and how to get in. They'll be armed forces here in a few hours."

"Have you lost your mind!" Jill shouted. "If they get their hands on this research they'll take it and use it in their own experiments. It'll be Raccoon City all over again!"

"And more importantly, why didn't you call them when you first found this base?" the Doctor sounded genuinely baffled rather than worried.

"I wasn't going to betray you." Leon looked over at the Survivors. "I knew I'd be able to sneak enough samples out of here without you noticing," he looked back at the Doctor "but then you showed up. You won't get out of this one, Doctor. I've warned them about you and when they get here they'll take you back to find out just what you are."

"But what about your arm?" the Doctor exclaimed. "What do you think they'll do when they see _that_?" he pointed at Leon's mutant arm.

Leon laughed "They'll find a cure, and they won't need _you_ to help them. All they'll need is this."

Leon's free hand reached into his side pack and pulled out a plastic bag. The plastic was too hazy to see through, but a big hole had been ripped in the side, allowing them all to see what was held within. A black lump of shrivelled flesh, with holes where veins used to be connected. On the side of the bag was a label that read 'Mother/Progenitor virus- source'.

"This is what started it all. With this Umbrella will be finished and the viral research will be under control of the federal government."

"Is that an appendix?"

Leon frowned and said "What are you talking about?"

"That organ, looks just like an appendix. That's the source of the mother virus?"

"All I know is that I'm taking it back to America, and you're coming with me."

"And how do you attend to escape? Now that you've used a computer in this place Wesker will know exactly where we are. You think he'll just let us go?"

"The map shows there's an emergency elevator at the lowest level of the facility," he showed the Doctor the back of his left hand, revealing a clumsily written combination of letters and numbers "and I found the code to activate it hidden in the computer network. All I need to do is get there, with no hassle from you."

Leon swung the pistol back towards the Doctor and pointed it at his leg. The Doctor's eyes widened...

Then Chris rammed into Leon, grabbing his gun arm as he did.

Surprisingly, Leon didn't even flinch, apparently too strong to be knocked down by a single man. Despite this, Chris clung on tight. Leon turned his head slowly to look at him.

"You wanna take him on," Chris grunted "then you've gotta take me on first."

Leon slammed Chris into the wall without hesitation. The Doctor bounded forward and latched himself onto Leon's other arm. Leon tried to hurl the Time Lord away, but a volley of pistol fire from Jill and Rebecca smacked into his legs, forcing him onto his knees.

The Doctor managed to grab Leon's weapon in the confusion and activate the sonic screwdriver against it. Instantly the gun vibrated at such a high frequency that Leon's body spasmed, allowing the Doctor and Chris to untangle themselves and back away. The effect was short lived as Leon crushed the pistol without effort. He rose to his feet and drew his arm back as though to throw a punch. Chris, Jill and the Doctor went on the defensive and braced themselves for the attack-

"Outta the way!"

-but then Rebecca darted between them and sprayed the wounds in Leon's legs with first aid spray. Leon roared as steam erupted from the holes in his legs, and then from his mouth. He fell to the floor shuddering as the affects of the medicinal spray overcame him.

"Nice work Rebecca!" the Doctor beamed as he slapped her on the shoulder.

"I'm not just pretty face." she looked over her shoulder and smiled coyly at the Doctor.

"Why isn't he dissolving?" Jill asked.

"This f. aid spray was practically finished. Guess there wasn't enough to actually kill him."

"Good thing too" the Doctor said as he stepped forward "because we don't want any more deaths, do we?"

Leon clambered unsteadily to his feet. His legs seemed very unstable, but his right hand seemed to have mutated again. It was no longer soft and bloated, but bony and stretched to twice it's original length, with needle claws on the end of each finger.

"How," he spluttered "did you do that?"

"We've found out more about the T-virus while you were away." the Doctor couldn't help but gloat. "If you'd stuck with us you'd know about it too. Then again if you'd stuck with us you wouldn't be in the state you are now."

"If you don't shut up, Doctor," Leon took a threatening step forward "I'm going to rip your head off and slam it against the wall, got it?"

No reply.

For a moment Leon felt some small satisfaction that he'd finally managed to silence the irritating man, but then he realised the Doctor wasn't even looking at him. He and the Survivors seemed to be looking in awe and horror at something over his shoulder. He spun round, and was greeted with a true monstrosity. It was gigantic and lizard like. It leered over all of them, completely filling the width and height of the corridor with it's mass. The snot green skin looked tougher than leather, and spines protruded from it's shoulders in a line that led down the creatures back and onto it's mace like tail which lashed the floor behind. The things limbs were powerful and bulging with muscles. Even as they all stared in horror, claws extended from the hands and feet- glistening, saber-like claws.

The face was vaguely humanoid, but it was pale green and twisted into what looked like an amused sneer. The teeth it bared were razor sharp and dripping with saliva. The eyes were the colour of blood, with slip pupils, and rusty red hair grew from it's scalp.

When the claws had stretched to their maximum length, the thing took a step forward and raised it's gargantuan hand. At the same time, Leon stepped forward and raised his own powerful fist. The blows met in mid air.

* * *

"Look!" Donna hissed, half with excitement, half with horror at the sight on one of the monitors. It showed Chris, Jill, a girl she didn't recognise and the Doctor staring open mouthed at whatever was carrying the camera that showed what was going on. The image was jerking around wildly but it was just possible to catch a few glimpses of Leon, who appeared to be fighting with whatever had been sent to attack them.

"We've gotta do something or they're dead!" she whispered desperately to Claire.

"And we'll have to do it fast." she replied, taking a syringe from a tray next to the operating table.

* * *

Leon flailed in the beast's titanic grip, but quite literally couldn't break free to save his life. The green monster smashed him against the wall and held him in place with one hand flat against his chest. The other hand swallowed up Leon's entire mutated arm and began to squeeze. Leon howled in pain, then ripped a combat knife from where it hung from his shoulder and stabbed deep into the joint where the monster's forearm and upper arm connected. The thing didn't seem at all bothered by the wound, but the arm involuntarily bent and lost it's grip on Leon. The government agent used the opportunity to punch the knife with bone crushing force into monster's neck. It stumbled back from the blow but as it did it lashed out. The claws sliced through Leon's stomach and hips, spraying blood across the wall.

The bag containing the unidentified organ spiralled through the air, almost cut in two. The Doctor stepped forward and caught it casually.

"Doctor, put that thing down! You'll be infected!" Jill shouted over the din of the two fighting mutants.

"Don't worry; it won't infect me unless I drink the fluid from this appendix. At least I think it's an appendix." he looked at the bag carefully, seeming to forget that a pair of uncontrollable beasts were brawling just in front of him. Jill ran forward, knocked the bag out of his hand and dragged him back.

"Oi!" he protested.

"If pure T-virus comes in contact with the air it can become airborne!"

The Doctor's interest piqued again.

"It can mutate it's own form _as well as_ those it infects!"

'_And it's mine_!' a harsh voice declared.

They looked ahead of them. Leon lay in a crumpled heap, blood freely flowing from multiple wounds. The newly arrived B.O.W was stalking towards them again. This time, the Doctor noticed the thin metal collar wrapped around it's throat.

'_What you have there, Doctor,_' snapped Wesker's voice from a transmitter somewhere on the collar '_is one of the last samples of the Progenitor virus in the world. Either you surrender it, and yourselves to me, or this bio-weapon under my control will rip you all to pieces._'

"It's not going to happen Wesker!" Chris growled back. He, Jill and Rebecca aimed their weapons at the monster. The Doctor, predictably, stood his ground, preventing any shooting from taking place.

"Quite right Chris. If Al was really going to set his little pet on us he would have done it without hesitation, wouldn't he?"

The Survivors paused to consider this.

"But while I've got this," he held up the plastic bag "he can't do a thing. This 'virus sample' is ready to fall apart right now. You wouldn't risk destroying it just to get rid of us, would you?"

Silence replied.

"You know as well as I do this isn't just a virus sample. This is an organ from a living creature. An organ that produced the mother virus while the creature was alive. That means originally the mother virus wasn't a virus at all. If you've been using this to research biological weapons for so long you must have some idea what it is. So tell me, what is it?"

More silence. The creature acting as a messenger had stopped four feet away from the Doctor and made no move to attack or retreat. The three members of the Survivors kept quiet, recognising that only the Doctor could hope to win this battle of words.

"Oh come on Albert!" the Doctor whined like a child. "You've done so much work on this and now you finally meet someone who understands it as well. You must be bursting to tell someone about it. Why not just give me hint?"

There was a slight pause, then Wesker finally broke his silence.

'_From hacking into my computers, you must know that the mother virus was found in the body of a gorilla that had been trapped in a glacier. The body dated back millions of years, before the process of evolution from apes to humans had even begun_.' Wesker's voice held the faintest note of excitement as he spoke, almost with the same juvenile glee the Doctor often displayed. '_The damage caused by the ultra low temperatures and exposure to open air when the corpse was found should have ruined the cells, but they didn't. Something preserved the body and had healed most of the cell damage caused by ice particles._'

"The mother virus." the Doctor answered, hanging on his every word.

'_Yes. The fluids in that organ stayed dormant for all that time, yet even when frozen it can still function at an incredibly slow pace, restoring damage to the body. When the body had thawed out the virus adapted to an airborne form and spread to the research team who found it, causing minor mutations. The three scientists who organised the expedition were able to cultivate and produce the virus in large _quantities_. The virus has such potential that the organ you have there is actually an identical clone of the original organ, created from subjecting a small piece of it to growth acceleration experiments._'

The green monster took a step forward.

'_Now perhaps you can understand just how much the viral research is worth. It's worth everything. If you try to get in my way, you will all die_.'

"Albert, I agree. The mother virus is absolutely fascinating. But it's not supposed to be used the way you're using it."

'_Says who_?'

"Says me! And I'm not one to be argued with!"

'_Neither am I, Doctor_.' Wesker's voice took on a sinister tone. '_Either you start doing as I say right now, or you get to listen to the sound of Donna Noble and Claire Redfield dying_.'

"NO!" Chris blurted out. The Doctor blanched.

"Albert, just wait a moment. We can make a deal. I can help you with this research. I can unlock all the secrets of the mother virus for you, but I don't want anyone getting hurt, alright? Let's just discuss this."

'_Sure; we'll discuss it. How about I just go and get my two guests, then you can decide who dies first_?'

The Doctor gazed in disbelief at the monster. He'd tried so hard to get through the base to find the two women. Now they were in Wesker's hands and he was powerless to do anything about it. What could he possibly say? Should actually choose which one would die and which one would live? Should he try to surrender and risk being killed by the bio-weapon? It seemed hopeless, no matter what he tried to do.

Then the sound of a scream ripped from the transmitter. The Doctor yelled, terror and shock coming over him like a tidal wave, but the yell died in his throat.

That wasn't a female scream. That was Wesker!

* * *

"...then you can decide who dies first?" Wesker passively questioned.

Donna's rage was threatening to boil over. How dare he threaten the Doctor like that? How dare he even threaten to do something so evil! It was all she could do to stop herself from jumping forward and hitting him over the head. But she managed, and continued sneaking round the block of an operating table towards the only door in the room. Claire had sneaked round on Wesker's right, and was crouched at the corner of 'Plant 47's' tank.

Wesker spun round in his chair, expecting to see his two captives where he'd left them. His mouth fell open in a comical fashion as he saw they were gone. That's when Claire sprang forward.

Wesker turned to meet her but before he could attack, Claire slammed the syringe she'd taken as hard as she could into the side of Wesker's head and depressed the plunger.

Wesker screamed in pain as a highly dangerous chemical entered his flesh and burned like fire. He jumped to his feet, clawing at his face, but Claire grabbed his waist in a tackle and forced him back onto his computer console.

Donna made a dash to the door and tried it, just as they'd planned. It was an automatic door, but it refused to open, and there was no buttons or sensors visible. She turned back to the scrum that Claire had created. As they feared, it looked like they needed the computer to open the door. Donna was pretty certain she knew what Wesker's password was, but under the circumstances it wasn't a very good idea to try and break into Wesker's mainframe.

Claire was struggling to try and simultaneously beat Wesker's head in and pull a gun from where it hung in his shoulder holster, but the man knocked her hands aside, and it seemed that the poison in his head was quickly wearing off. Even as Claire continued to pummel his face, Wesker reached out with a vast palm and wrapped it around Claire's head with ease.

He forced her back and climbed to his feet. Then, still holding onto her face, he bashed the back of her skull against the glass case that contained the hideous plant. The vines lashed the air in outrage at the disturbance. A muffled cry came from within Wesker's hand, but he continued to hold on and push Claire against the glass.

Aware that the young woman's head wouldn't be able to endure much pressure for very long, Donna skimmed across Wesker's large desk in a desperate search for a weapon. Finding the only thing that might be of use, she ran up behind Wesker and shattered a glass pot of coffee over his head.

He winced, then turned to look at Donna with a deeply unimpressed expression on his face. He backhanded Donna away and resumed his attack on Claire.

The stunned Donna shook her head to try and clear her vision. She hauled herself to her using the desk for support. Wesker ignored her as Claire's struggles became frantic. Donna looked back to the mass of computers, dazed but determined to find a weapon to deal with her lunatic captor. Then she spotted something that gave her a brainwave.

Wesker didn't intend to kill Claire; just badly wound her. When he was back on the radio he might kill her, but not before then.

"Oi, blondie!" Donna yelled at the top of her voice. Wesker's head shot round by reflex at the insult. At the same time, Donna grabbed the monitor which showed the point of view from Wesker's camera eye, and spun it so that Wesker was looking straight into it.

The same image was repeated over and over again as the camera recorded it's own display. The monitor showed a swirling, shimmering ball of pure white in a background of jet black.

Wesker grunted, drawing Donna's attention. He released Claire who fell to the floor gasping. The Londoner was immediately at her side. Wesker raised a shaky hand to cover his mechanical eye, but the damage had already been done. He began to stagger blindly to the operation area of the lab, shaking all over as though he were having a fit. He made several more choked noises but said nothing comprehensive. Donna and Claire watched in confusion.

"What did you do to him?" Claire asked.

"I showed him that computer which shows what he sees." Donna explained. "It must have fried his brain."

They watched the spectacle for a moment longer, but something else distracted them.

'_Donna, are you there_?'

Donna launched herself in the direction of the Doctor's voice. She re-adjusted the computer screen that showed the Doctor and the three members of the Survivors. She quickly searched and found a microphone reaching up from the desk and seized it in both hands.

"Doctor, can you hear me!" she shouted down it.

The Doctor on the screen darted a step forward at the sound of her voice but stopped and hovered warily a few steps from the camera.

'_Donna, is that you_!' the Doctor's voice shouted back over the radio in perfect sync with his own image.

"Yes I'm here, and Claire's with me."

'_Oh thank God_!_ Where have you been_!_ We've been worried sick about you_!'

"We're in Wesker's, sort of computer room or lab or something."

'_Where is he?_'

"We've taken care him. He's down for the count."

She smiled smugly as the Doctor did a double take.

'_Wow_!_ Nice one_!' he congratulated.

"Yeah, I can look after myself, even when my tour guide goes and gets himself lost and leaves me in the lurch. Where the hell have you been!"

'_Sorry, we got held up by the security in this place. Look Donna, if you've got a computer can you see anything that might make it a bit easier for us to get through_?'

"I can do better than that." she said proudly as she pulled an extendable platform till it's mechanical arm stretched out, holding yet another computer in front of her "While you were wasting time up there, I was keeping an eye on Wesker and I found out what his password is. I'll have all the doors open in seconds."

'_That's brilliant_! _You sure you can manage it_?'

Donna looked affronted.

"Best temp in Chiswick; you 'aving a laugh?

* * *

The Doctor sighed. He and Donna had been separated for over half an hour, he'd been beside himself with concern, they'd finally discovered that they were both alright, and all she could do was accuse him of doubting her abilities (as if he'd dare).

'_As soon as I've done this you better get down here sharpish. I'm absolutely sick of this place.'_

A few faint keystrokes could be heard through the collar. The monster that wore it still hadn't moved. It's head was bowed but it's claws were still poking from it's hands. Apparently, it was still waiting for orders.

'_By the way, Doctor. While we've been here Wesker's been working on something called a Union virus, and apparently it's ready to be used now.'_

The Doctor looked back at the others. They shook there's heads to show they had no idea what a Union virus was, but understandably they didn't look very pleased about it.

"Any idea what it does?" he asked.

_'How should I know_? _I'm not a scientist. Now stop interrupting, I need to concentrate._'

The Doctor was going to point out that she was the one who'd started talking, when a voice blared out from speakers in the roof.

**'Be advised: the current high security situation has been ****cancelled.'**

"YES!" the Doctor beamed as the sound of nearby locks clicked and more lights flickered on in the corridor.

**'All security systems have now been reset to level one.'**

'_Sorted_!' Donna's voice stated smoothly over the radio. The Doctor laughed and went to reply.

Then the monster wearing the collar looked up...

And then it occurred to the Doctor than 'reset' was not the same as 'turn off'.

"Er, Donna..."

* * *

Donna snatched the keyboard under the screen which showed the camera getting closer to the Doctor and his companions, accompanied by the sound of pounding footsteps.

'..._you've started off this monster again_.'

"Yes, I'm aware thank you!" she retorted as the camera image shank into the corner of the screen and a list of options presented themselves. She was quickly drawn to an option separate from the others which said 'Deactivate'. She quickly selected it and typed in Wesker's master password.

The picture vanished in a snowstorm of static. A monstrous growl, overlaid with interference, came from the receiver in the computer.

'_Donna, that didn't help_.' the Doctor's voice was barely understandable. '_You're supposed to use the inhibitor to control it._'

"Well what have I done?"

'_You've removed the inhibitor. Now it's uncontrollable._'

Donna cursed under her breath.

'_Is there any information there about this thing_?'

"Like what?"

'_Like how to kill a huge green killing machine of course_!' the sound of Chris losing his temper replaced the Doctor's voice this time. Donna gritted her teeth as the outburst added to her tension, but then something hit her.

"That's the thing that captured me and Claire! He used to be a guy called Steve Burnside; he was a friend of Claire's! Claire says he was going to kill her when he changed into a monster but he got his head together at the last moment! Maybe you can talk him round!"

Only a scrambled garble replied. Donna turned to Claire, suddenly remembering her feelings for Steve and wondering if she was alright.

Claire was far from alright. She was in Wesker's grip.

Donna jumped in surprise to see him back so suddenly, then gasped in shock. He'd ripped his robotic eye out of his face, leaving a gaping, bloody hole. Trails of blood crawled down his face and over his bared teeth, but he didn't seem to notice. He was too busy glaring at Donna.

"Do you have any idea just how painful that was?" he hissed, barely audible. "That camera fed images directly into the surviving nerve endings in my eye socket, straight into my brain. What you did could have overcome my sense of sight. You could have blinded me!"

He pulled the slumped form of Claire until she was standing upright. She was dazed; apparently Wesker had hit her in the back of the head again. She was quickly regaining her senses however, proved by the look of terror on her face as Wesker lifted her off the ground by the back of her head. He began to advance on Donna

"Perhaps you would like to know what it's like to be blinded."

Donna stepped back by reflex. Wesker continued to move forward slowly, like a predator stalking it's prey. Donna backed up until she felt the desk pushing into her legs, but he continued to get closer as though he were some unstoppable force.

Then Claire slammed her elbow into his chin. Of course, it didn't hurt him at all, but it distracted him enough that he stopped approaching Donna and turned towards Claire.

"As for you, I think it's about time I cured your meaningless fear of my viral research. Why not have a taste of the virus that saved my life all those years ago?"

The gratitude Donna felt for Claire's distraction vanished, and was replaced despair and fear that stabbed through her heart like a dagger of ice. She watched in stunned fascination as Wesker used his free hand to lift the red choker around Claire's neck out of the way. Claire gasped and thrashed around trying to escape. Wesker took no notice as he opened his mouth, revealing fangs growing from his gums as though he were a vampire.

"NO, STOP!" Donna shouted. Wesker lowered his teeth to Claire's neck.

"Infect me instead!" she cried out.

Wesker paused, then looked at Donna. He smiled with savage glee.

"Now why should I do that?" he asked softly.

Donna temper instantly heated up as the smug, twisted lunatic she faced had discovered a weakness. She said "Well why not? You seem to think being diseased is so great, going on about how incredible it is to get your hands on gorilla's guts or whatever. You say you're such a genius because you've made a virus that turns people into mindless monsters; obviously you were the first one to try it out. Well it ain't much to shout about from where I'm standing mate..."

As Donna continued her rant, Wesker's smile slowly began to be replaced with a frown, and his interest gradually turned away from the young girl in his grasp and towards the one standing in front of him. She went on with her Donna-Noble-attitude fuelled tantrum, blissfully unaware of what she was getting herself into. She'd been looking for a chance to lose her temper all day.

"... said I should get a proper career because it's the only way I'll get anywhere. Well it's got you somewhere hasn't it? Hiding down here with no one except your failed experiments to talk to, claiming that it's all _really_ great. Has anyone told you what a joke you are? Just look at you; you're ridiculous. You sit at the very bottom of this dump, surrounded by really gross things in jars, surfing the net all day and irritating anyone who comes here by giving them a running commentary of everything they do. That's not being a genius, _Al_; that's being seriously insecure."

Wesker hurled Claire aside with ease and barrelled into Donna. She tried to struggle away from him, but he was impossibly strong. He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head to one side. Then he roared in triumph, and bit down into her neck.

Donna's scream echoed round the lab.

* * *

The Doctor felt guilty as he looked at the monster before him. In all the confusion he'd forgotten that this creature had originally been a human being, subjected to inhuman suffering.

The almost human face, he realised, was not a sick parody of human life, but a sinister testament to the man he'd once been.

But if Donna was right, it wasn't too late to try and save him.

"Stay back; I'll deal with this." he said to the other three.

He focussed on the twisted horror as it took another step forward.

"Steve? Steve Burnside?" he asked. No response except another footstep.

"Steve, I know you're in there. You've got to listen to me. You've been experimented on with a viral weapon. You're not supposed to be a monster, and your friend Claire Redfield is in danger."

The beast seemed to pause in mid step, but only for a split second. It carried on in ignorance of the Doctor's words.

Chris arrived at the Doctor's side and said "This isn't working Doctor; we've gotta get out of here."

"If I can look into his mind I can make him remember everything. I just need a quick distraction."

He looked towards Jill and Rebecca.

"Quick! First aid spray!"

A can quickly sailed through the air and was caught by the Doctor. He passed the gorilla appendix back for safe keeping and turned back to the monster, ignoring Rebecca's indignant yelp as the lump of flesh landed in her hands.

"So sorry about this Steve." the Doctor said as he shook up the can, before reaching out and spraying it in Steve's face.

The monster bellowed as the medicine found it's way in through the eyes, nose and mouth. The thing collapsed to the floor with it's face in it's hands.

The Doctor tossed the aerosol over his shoulder and strode forward, reaching out his hands to place over the bio-weapon's head in an attempt to remind it who it really was.

But then a piecing yell squawked from the broken inhibitor collar at that moment, and it didn't sound like Wesker.

Monster forgotten, he backed up it shock. That was Donna's voice! No doubt about it. A thousand terrible thoughts flashed through the Doctor's mind, each one worse than the next, trying to imagine what had happened to his friend.

It was a big mistake. While the Doctor was still hypnotised by the sound from the radio, the green monster reared up and struck. The Doctor was hammered onto the floor before he could realise what was going on. The terrible creature snarled with rage and raised it's fist.

The magnum spoke with it's authoritative report. 'Steve' stumbled back a step, a deep hole through the chest pumping out thick blood. Chris ran to the Doctor's side.

"Time to go Doc!" he said as he pulled the Doctor to his feet, but the monster recovered far quicker than expected. With a roar, it tossed it's arm out and smashed them both into the wall. They both crumpled into a heap on the floor.

Jill joined the fray without hesitation. Rebecca was delayed in helping as she began searching for something in her equipment belt. Jill rammed the M-16 into the beast's chest and fired at point blank range. The bursts of flame scotched the leathery flesh black, while the bullets scattered a crimson coloured pattern over the vast abdomen.

The creature fell back again, raising it's head to the ceiling and roaring with inconsolable rage. Jill reached to her side pack to find a grenade to finish off the enemy. Too late she remembered that her side pack had been ripped off by the hunters they met up in the foundation level of the base.

Once again the split second hesitation was all the B.O.W needed. In a single swift swipe, the monster punched it's arm forward, and plunged it's claws deep in Jill's belly.

Jill's body was hoisted up to the roof as though she were some sick display.

The corridor seemed to freeze, everyone (even the monster) gazing up at the limp form of Jill Valentine.

Then with a jerk of it's hand, the B.O.W tossed her back onto the floor. It then proceeded to ignore her.

Chris found his feet and made a clumsy dash to her side, forgetting his own wounds. He held her body against his chest, searching for some sign of life, not caring that her killer was but a few feet away.

As the beast took a step forward, the Doctor took his place in it's path and pointed the sonic screwdriver at it. He didn't know what he could do to try and stop it, but he had to try something.

"Doctor!"

He looked at Rebecca, and saw something flying at him. He quickly caught it before it hit him in the face.

"Use that grenade! It's our only chance!" Rebecca urged frantically.

The Doctor looked at the grenade in his hand with disgust. Surely it hadn't come to this? But then a brilliant idea came to him. Looking up, he saw just what he'd been hoping for; an air vent.

The Doctor took aim and activated the sonic screwdriver. After a tense second all the screws in the vent fell out, and the grating dropped straight onto the B.O.W's head. Being so tall, the distance between the thing's head and the vent wasn't far, and the impact was very minimal. It grabbed the square of metal as it fell off the foul creature's hunched back and crushed it out of shape.

This time, the moment's distraction worked in the Doctor's favour. He pulled the pin on the grenade a tossed it into the open air vent.

A brief pause.

BOOM!

The vent shaft and part of the ceiling erupted downward onto the mutant. With a roar, it lost it's footing and crashed it the floor in a mess of metal and warped flesh.

The beast didn't have the time to recover. It found itself with a Time Lord sitting on it's back, nestled safe between the spines, clamping it's hands round the nearly human head. The thing tried to fight off the attacker, but then it felt something that it hadn't felt in a long time.

Thoughts...

Real, intelligent, human thoughts- intermingled with foreign thoughts, thoughts from someone else, someone known as the Doctor

The Doctor forced himself to concentrate as feral, bestial thoughts threatened to override his sense of reason. Whatever had happened to Steve was not the same as what had happened to the zombies. Both his conscious and subconscious were buried deep beneath layers of instinct and the collective thoughts of some sort of hive mind. No doubt Wesker was somehow behind it and he needed to find out what it was. But first, he had to bring Steve back to humanity.

The beast howled and wriggled under the weight of the collapsed roof but couldn't get free. The Doctor held on tight and continued to push the creatures mind to the limit in order to recover the human side. And finally, the struggling and growling stopped. The monster lay still.

The Doctor climbed from it's back and stepped away. By the look of it, the mutant would need a minute or two to get it's thoughts in order. He left it for a moment and turned back to the others.

Chris and Rebecca knelt either side of Jill, fussing desperately over her wounds. Jill herself...

The Doctor did a double take. Jill was alive!

Her teeth were gritted in pain and she seemed very weak, but incredibly she was still alive. The Doctor joined them.

"Doctor, you've gotta help her." Rebecca pleaded. "This sort of injury is way too advanced for me to deal with."

The Doctor took one look at the exposed wounds, and realisation dawned on him.

"She should be dead already," he explained "but she isn't- because of the T-virus." he pointed the sonic screwdriver at Jill's abdomen and pressed the button. The device whistled with it's blue light for just a second, then the Doctor put it away again.

"The T-virus is trying to heal the injury," he spoke with urgency in his voice "but the damage is too much. The virus cells are multiplying massively. If this goes on, Jill's going to mutate."

They all looked at him in horror.

"What are we gonna do! We can't let that happen!" Chris protested.

"I'll do what I can Chris, but we have to get her to a lab so I can make an antidote for the virus." He snatched the map out of Chris' pocket and skimmed over it. "The nearest labs are three floors down. We have to find something to carry Jill on safely or those wounds will get worse."

"Chrisssss..." a voice croaked.

Everyone looked at Jill, but then they realised the voice hadn't come from her. They all turned towards Steve.

"Claire'sss brother..." the green monster rasped. Then, before anyone could do or say anything, Steve threw the pile of metal that held him down into a side corridor and raised itself on all fours.

"Claire sssaid her brother would come" the beast hissed as it climbed to it's feet. It stepped towards the four people gathered in front of it. Chris and Rebecca raised their weapons again but the monster took no notice.

The Doctor stood to meet the B.O.W as it approached.

"Steve Burnside?" he asked.

"Yesss." it replied.

"You used to be a friend of Claire Redfield."

It growled slightly, and the blood red eyes closed as though in deep concentration. Then the thing looked at Chris again.

"Claire sssaid her brother would come to help her."

"Do you know where Claire is?"

"He hasss her."

"Where is he!"

"Down; down in the lassst room."

"Steve, Wesker is a danger to everyone. We've got to stop him, and we've got to save Claire and her friend. Will you help us?"

"Help us!" Chris exclaimed. "That thing just tried to kill Jill!"

"He was under Wesker's control. It's Wesker who's done this Chris, and we need all the help we can get to stop him. So please don't argue with me now. The first thing we need to do is treat Jill, and Steve must know his way through this place, right Steve?"

The B.O.W nodded and said "The massster, said the Doctor was his enemy. I'll help him, and Claire'sss brother."

"That's the way Steve!" the Doctor said encouragingly. "Right, first we need to take Jill to labs below this floor so we can treat her. Do you know where we can find a stretcher?"

Without a word, Steve turned round and lumbered down the passage where he'd thrown the debris from the damaged roof. After a moment the passageway was filled with the sound of cracking rock and twisting metal. The Doctor and the two former S.T.A.R.S members looked between each other in confusion. Then Steve stomped back into view, with a wide sheet of metal clutched in his hand. He presented it to the Doctor.

"Well, better than nothing I suppose." he said.

Taking this as a sign of agreement, Steve stepped forward, his bulk forcing the Doctor back, and approached Jill.

"Hold on a mo-" Rebecca started to say, but the words were lost as Steve scooped up Jill's limp body using the sheet of metal like a shovel. Jill could only stare open mouthed at the twisted face that came within only an arms reach of her.

"This way." Steve grunted, before marching off down the corridor, everyone else quickly jogging after him to keep up with his massive strides.

* * *

Claire pulled herself to her feet as Donna fell to the floor in shock, blood all over her neck.

Wesker had finally calmed down. He observed the woman who he'd just infected. She looked up at him fearfully. In time she would be a creature just like him; a perfect subject for his continuing experiments, which required lab rats with the endurance to survive more advanced tests.

He looked towards Claire. She'd probably be a good test subject too. He stepped towards her.

"Your brother must be feeling disappointed." he chuckled "Before, I hated him more than I've ever hated anyone in my life. Now he's got competition from the Doctor."

Claire leaned against the plated glass door for support and gave Wesker a dark look.

"When they get here they're going to kill you, Wesker" she warned him.

"I'm sure Chris will try. By the sound of it the Doctor can't stomach the idea of killing someone. But once they see what I've made of you and you friend Donna, I think they'll be too distracted to do anything."

He reached out as though he was going to touch Claire's cheek, but stopped at the last moment, hand hanging in the air. Claire glared into his eyes, daring him to lay a hand on her.

"What do you think? What sort of virus should I use on you? I just can't decide which mutation will get the best reaction from your brother."

He laughed openly. Claire just watched him with fury in her eyes.

Then suddenly there was a whoosh, and the door slid open, causing Claire to fall backwards through it with a surprised cry. Before even Wesker could react the door snapped shut again and the lock clacked in place.

Wesker rounded on his mainframe which had the computer that controlled the door to the room, and as he expected saw Donna perched in his chair with the appropriate keyboard in her lap.

"Beat that." she grinned weakly as she snagged a half filled cup of coffee and poured it over the box connected to the keyboard, rendering it completely useless. She gave Wesker a look of smug triumph, before falling back in a dead faint.

Wesker closed his eye in exasperation. He was now trapped in his own lab with an armoured door that even a B.O.W like himself could break, with the primary controls for said lab spluttering with damaged circuits and an unconscious girl bleeding all over his chair.

* * *

On the other side of the sealed door, Claire looked at the metal barrier in dismay. Donna had saved her but in so doing had locked herself in. And now she was facing Wesker alone.

There were controls on the wall next to the door, but it was locked with a retina scanner and a card reader; no way was she getting through that. And she couldn't wait around for the others to get their (assuming they were anywhere near there) for Donna could possibly be killed several times over by the time they arrived. She had only one reasonable choice.

She turned to her left, where a short but sturdy flight of metal steps led into the vast arena that she'd be able to see from the window in Wesker's lab. Obviously it was some sort of B.O.W test area, so it stood to reason that in order to test B.O.W's there were powerful weapons nearby to test them against.

She hoped…


	9. Chapter 9

_**I'll warn you now, it's about to get a bit complicated, but bare with me**_

* * *

The Doctor had no luck getting the inhibitor collar to work. Even the sonic screwdriver hadn't been able to fix it. Apparently it had disabled itself as a security measure, and the Doctor had no way of trying to contact Donna again. Though he hated to admit it, she'd have to come second this time. The time it could take to find a computer with a connection to Wesker's control room could be more than enough time for the T-virus to take it's toll on Jill.

The now restored Steve booted down the metal door and forced his way into the lab in the same single minded manner he'd demonstrated as he led them down three floors. The door frame twisted and shrieked as the vast shoulders ignored the incompatible size of the doorway. Everyone else turned up a second later, panting for breath (excluding the Doctor of course).

"Put her down there, Steve." the Doctor instructed as he took his stethoscope from his inside pocket before tossing the long coat onto a chair.

Steve complied at once, sweeping a table clear with one swipe of his massive green arm and laying Jill on it. The Doctor went to her side and quickly examined her.

Having decided the condition wasn't good, he stood back and surveyed the lab. The most notable feature was the glass case. The square box stood in the corner of the room, holding no less than seven zombies within. They were pressed tight against the glass, smearing it with blood and slime as they mindlessly tried to force their way out, only one of them actually pushing against the door which was sealed closed. B.O.W gas pipes and multiple tubes fed into the tank, indicating it was airtight. The rest of the lab was nothing out of the ordinary; computers, incubators, operating tables, desks, files, tubes of chemicals and squelchy things in jars.

"What do we do now?" Chris asked as he put his hand against Jill's head. Her temperature was reaching critical level.

"Virus cells are multiplying, thousands every second. In a matter of minutes she'll start developing T-virus tumours, and that's when her body will either start mutating to accommodate them or will destroy itself."

"Can anything stop it? How about a surgical laser?" Rebecca suggested as she dashed to a cupboard and began routing around in it.

"That'll make it worse; the T-virus can sense when it's in danger and can mutate itself. If we damage the cells directly they'll start producing faster and stronger."

"Then the first aid spray?" Chris said desperately as he took one from Jill's belt. The Doctor knocked his hand aside.

"T-virus and first aid spray is virtually the same thing. They'll combine and mutate even further. That or she'll overdose on it."

"Then what _do_ we do?"

"A cure. Something absolutely toxic to the T-virus, but something that won't harm human flesh."

"What about those wounds?" Rebecca asked. "You said it was the T-virus healing the injury."

"I know." the Doctor ran his hands across his forehead and through his hair, stretching his eyelids wide open. "If we're going to save Jill we need to try and separate the regeneration cells from the rest of the virus."

"Is that even possible?" Chris asked.

The Doctor looked him dead in the eye, his gaze strong enough to bore through rock, jaw set in firm frown.

He didn't reply.

Sensing how things were looking, Rebecca said "We still have the appendix. Maybe we can use that?"

"It's worth a try; Rebecca, put the appendix on the desk over there. Chris," the Doctor pushed the sonic screwdriver into Chris' hand and switched the settings "press that button and keep the light over those wounds. That will help stabilise the T-virus cell structure and prevent apoptosis, but only do it for, err, let me think; say six seconds at a time, else dormant cells might become active. And _don't_ hold it anywhere near her heart or it might stop."

Without waiting for an answer, the Doctor left Chris and Jill and joined Rebecca at the desk.

"Right, Becky," he said "we've got to find out what makes this virus tick. You start going through these files; look for anything about any weakness in the T-virus or mother virus. In the meantime, I'll start on this." he indicted the lump of flesh, took the syringe and scalpel from his right pocket, and slapped a pair of glasses on his face.

"If that thing has been with us all this time, doesn't that mean we're infected too?" Rebecca asked.

"Probably," the Doctor looked at her ominously "which is why we've got to work on this fast."

They turned their attention to the work at hand.

Minutes passed.

The Doctor had his concentration fully applied to the appendix. He cut away pieces of flesh and grabbed nearby chemicals practically at random to pour deep inside the organ. A few times he dabbed his finger in the juices that leaked out and tasted them, but it seemed to have no affect on him at all.

Chris continued to do what he could for Jill, trying to stem the flow of blood from her wounds and occasionally pressing the sonic screwdriver into one of them and giving timed blasts of energy. Now and then he spoke softly to the injured woman, trying to offer some comfort, but Jill was delirious, drifting in and out of consciousness.

Rebecca diligently continued looking through file after file, trying to take in everything she could about the T-virus. The work was painfully slow, and the quietness in the lab as they all worked hard even began to get to the Doctor, who visibly grew more and more frustrated as every move he made was countered by the mother virus' refusal to be identified. The only one who seemed unfazed by the situation was Steve. He stood alone at the back of the lab, staring fixedly at the imprisoned zombies who went on moaning and pushing against their glass prison.

Minutes ticked by. Jill's wounds stopped bleeding and she became a little calmer in her half lucid state. The appendix began to resemble mince meat as the Doctor experimented and cut away pieces that were too contaminated to be used any further. Rebecca read on, the pile of used files turning into a small knoll on the floor where she threw them, and the notepad she found looking more and more pathetic as she added barely a single sentence of useful information for every two files she trawled through.

Eventually the Doctor dropped the scalpel and leaned heavily on the desk.

"I just can't get it, and for me that's saying something!" he confided in Rebecca. "I mean without a doubt, the mother virus _is_ a virus, but there's something else to it that I just can't put my finger on."

He moved left a little till he was standing next to Rebecca.

"Any ideas? Normally this is the part where the person I'm with makes a masterstroke by saying something completely at random but actually manages to get the right answer without even trying. Donna's great at that sort of thing; if only she were here now..."

Rebecca shut the folder she was reading with a snap, slightly more forceful than necessary. She looked at the Doctor angrily.

"Jill might die. Don't you care or something?"

The Doctor looked at Rebecca in surprise. He had thought that she was holding up well, but apparently he'd misjudged her condition. Right now, she was glaring daggers at him, giving him a look of pure disgust.

"Do you think this is some sort of game? Jill is relying on us to save her, and we've been at this for ten minutes and have nothing to show for it. How can you be so calm? Do you find this fun, or do you just like the idea of everyone looking to you to save the day, no matter whose life is at stake?"

Rebecca snatched the nearest file and opened it on a random page. The Doctor watched her uncertainly as she buried herself deeply in the documents inside. He looked back towards Chris.

The heavily built soldier glanced at the Doctor with a curious expression, but he didn't seem to have heard exactly what was going on. He quickly turned his attention back to Jill. Steve didn't seem to have noticed at all, still standing like a sentry in front of the imprisoned zombies.

The Doctor knelt down next to Rebecca and balanced his elbows on the desk. She continued to look at the folder in her hands, but her eyes weren't taking it in.

"Rebecca," the Doctor said in a delicate voice "of course I care about what happens to Jill. I'm worried about everyone, and I'm not doing this because I want everyone to look to me for guidance, because that just puts a burden on me."

Rebecca made no sign of acknowledgment. Her hands were trembling slightly, but whether from anger of stress, the Doctor couldn't tell. He continued.

"I know I sometimes don't express myself very appropriately, but that's because that's my way of dealing with it all; by immersing myself in it and taking it all on board so that I can see the fascinating side of it, as well as the painful side. If I didn't do that I don't know if I'd be able to cope. Honestly, I do care about Jill, and you, and everyone else who's stuck down here. I'd never put anything before the safety of another person, no matter what the cost might be, I just..." he struggled for a moment to find the words "can't afford show it. I can only take in so much of all this. Even I have my limits."

A silence followed the Doctor's explanation of himself. He couldn't tell what Rebecca's reaction would be, but he hoped it was something positive. It was hard enough to take it upon himself to stop the T-virus monsters and to save the world, but accusations of his shortcomings and his failure to deal with people was more than he could bear- mainly because he could rarely deny the accusations.

"Sorry..."

The word itself was simple, but the tone, the expression, and the way Rebecca said it told the Doctor that it was not so much an apology but an emotional plea. The Doctor moved forward, trying to make eye contact with the young girl. She refused to oblige, still watching the folder she held despite the tears that began welling up in her eyes.

"This is all my fault. When Jill was fighting Steve I didn't help her. I was trying to get more first aid spray. I thought I could help more if I could stun him or something instead of killing him. I should have been helping Jill. If I had she wouldn't-"

"What happened was not your fault." the Doctor said firmly. "It's no one's fault. I know from experience that some things just happen. You were trying to do what you thought was right; you can't blame yourself for that."

"But I'm a member of S.T.A.R.S; I should have been there to help, working as part of a team. She went to attack so I should have backed her up immediately."

"You forget, she was attacking Steve. He's not a monster, he's living creature. If you'd had saved Jill, it would have been at the cost of his life. Would you have preferred it like that?"

Rebecca didn't reply. She looked down at the unsympathetic metal of the desk and sighed defeatedly. She looked slightly ashamed of herself, hopefully because of forgetting about Steve's predicament rather than beating herself up over Jill's predicament.

"I shouldn't be in S.T.A.R.S at all. I make bad decisions and I get myself in situations I can't handle. In the mansion incident the same thing happened to a S.T.A.R.S member called Richard. I was working with him and he got injured badly, but I couldn't save him either. I can never seem to get it right."

"Being a soldier is a mugs game." the Doctor said in a wise tone. "It's a one way trip to disaster. Sure, the cause or the person you're fighting for will be alright, if you win, but for individual soldiers it's never a happy ending. How did you get involved in S.T.A.R.S anyway?"

Rebecca sniffed and shrugged, then said "My grandpa was a war medic. He and his older brother fought in the Second World War, but his brother died in the Normandy landings. He always used to tell me about his days in the army, showing me the stuff he bought back with him. I guess he inspired me. I wanted to see all the things he had."

"Including war?" the Doctor asked, not accusingly but curiously.

"Not exactly. I wanted to know what he'd been through, and what others have been through or go through in war. It's only fair to take the good with the bad, right?"

The Doctor took a moment to ponder this unusual philosophy. He thought of all the things he'd seen- great and wonderful things, disgusting and stomach-churning things, things of great beauty, terrible things, things that could make his hearts sing with joy, and others that had broken those same hearts.

"You know, there might be something in that," the Time Lord felt slightly surprised by the profoundness of Rebecca's statement "but the police force is not exactly the final frontier. How did that happen?"

"Well I was pretty young at the time so I grew out of the idea a little. When I started studying medicine in collage I thought about it again, but I wasn't so keen of travelling. But I liked the idea of doing my part to help people."

"But why the police? Why not a hospital?"

"I just felt, like," Rebecca paused to try and put her thoughts into words "felt I wanted to do my part in the world; something more important."

"Yeah, but caring for people is important. A battlefield doesn't make a difference."

"I guess so, but that's what I set my sites on, and soon after I graduated I got an offer to join S.T.A.R.S from Wesker. He said I'd been automatically offered a place because of my high grades and familiarity of the area- I lived in Raccoon City for years. All lies of course. He just wanted to see how a person skilled in chemistry would respond in a fight against his B.O.W's, but at the time it seemed too good to refuse."

"And since then you've stayed with the Survivors so that you can see the battle with Wesker through to the bitter end, doing your part to help people for something important?"

"...That's right." Rebecca finally looked at the Doctor. He was smiling kindly at her.

"That's beautiful. Really, it is. Rebecca Chambers, who fought against monsters, lost friends and found she'd been betrayed by her own captain, still refusing to give up because she wants to do her part. Only a human could think like that. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant."

The Doctor placed a comforting arm around the young medic's shoulders.

"Once this is over, it'll be over for good. They'll be no more outbreaks or B.O.W's to worry about. Umbrella and it's T-virus research ends today, because we're going to stop it, so chin Becky."

Rebecca smiled back at the Doctor.

"That's one of the best things I've heard in a long time"

"Well, with any luck you'll get to hear nicer things in the not so distant future. Speaking of which, when this is all over get a job in hospital or something, will you? I really don't think you were meant to be a soldier."

"Don't think I can handle it?" Rebecca became gloomy again.

"No, I just think you'd do better as a life saver than a life ender."

Rebecca gave a small smile to this.

"Now," the Doctor retrieved his arm from Rebecca's shoulders "let's see if we can't do something about Jill, eh? First let's have a look at those notes."

The Doctor slid the notepad across the desk so that he could read it. Rebecca looked away sheepishly as he frowned at the lack of information.

"I'm sorry; there's just so little about stopping the T-virus. Not even the people who made the T-virus had a way to cure it."

The Doctor ignored her and continued frowning.

"There's no need to look like that, I've done my best."

"I can see you have," the Doctor murmured "and you've uncovered something very interesting."

It was then Rebecca realised that the Doctor was frowning in thought, not distaste.

"You've written here 'The T-virus works by making a bond with the cells it infects. Anti-B.O.W gas temporarily impairs the T-virus by momentarily paralysing both the T-virus cells and the cells of the infected host. This disrupts both the virus and the host, crippling both of them. However, the drawback is that the T-virus' regenerative and adaptive abilities mean that if the disruption is too excessive the virus will make an even more desperate attempt to spread throughout the host, increasing both the extent and speed of mutation. It is believed, yet not proven, that this is how the lickers grew from standard zombies.' What's a licker supposed to be?"

"Is that all you have to say?" Rebecca asked incredulously.

"No I've got a lot more, so brace yourself." the Doctor warned. "That is the weirdest thing I've heard about the T-virus so far. The nature of a standard virus- it feeds off the energy of living organisms. If a virus was allowed to spread through a human body unhindered it would assimilate itself into every cell in the body until all bodily functions serve to feed and reproduce for the virus, at which time the human would die and the virus would soon follow, but that doesn't matter for a virus because it's not like with humans where individuals are important. All that matters is that some of the virus spreads elsewhere and then it's alright. But the T-virus makes a bond with the host's cells. That means the T-virus doesn't take over the human body; it creates an ecosystem with it, so that they both specifically defend on each other's survival. That's not viral behaviour at all. In fact that's completely bonkers!"

"That's all well and good, if you understand all that which _I didn't_! So how exactly does that help Jill?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"No."

"Well," the Doctor sprang to feet, giving both Rebecca and Chris a start "The T-virus is going hyperactive because Jill is badly injured which threatens both her and the virus. We heal Jill and the T-virus will calm down, buy us a bit of time."

"But you said spray would make it worse, Doctor." Chris said, paying attention now.

"Not if we use B.O.W gas to relinquish the T-virus' hold on Jill's cells for a moment. The genes in the first aid spray will concentrate on Jill's damaged flesh and therefore won't react with the T-virus unless the T-virus is still connected to Jill's cells, which is why we need to use B.O.W gas to separate them before hand."

"And if we use B.O.W gas the T-virus will try harder to mutate." Rebecca reminded him.

"Already thought of that." replied the Doctor, who didn't need reminding. "We have the mother virus in that appendix. We take a sample of that, mix it with the fluid in one of those jars holding those squelchy things, because the fluid is designed to keep cellular matter from decomposing or shutting down because it's full of steroids, and that will in turn make the mother virus sample become highly active which makes it perfect to inject into Jill because it will combine with the T-virus, but since they're both so different and they no longer have an ecosystem to support them they'll corrupt each other and force apoptosis on themselves to get rid of the excess virus, which will not spread to Jill because the virus will have been separated from her cells by the B.O.W gas, and by the time the virus has sorted itself out enough to reassert the ecosystem with Jill's cells the first aid spray would have healed her wounds as much as it can and will have worn off, meaning that the T-virus will detect that Jill is not so badly injured after all and the spread off T-virus cells will massively reduce and buy us some more time to make a cure, and yes I am that clever so let's get on with it!"

The Doctor made a dash to the case with the zombies trapped inside. He seized the nearest computer and started typing furiously, and in a matter of second there was a beep, and sickly green gas began to seep from half the pipes in the glass case.

* * *

Donna's eyes shot open. Then closed again.

'_The lights are way too bright_!'

For the second time that day she wondered if she had a hangover. Her head was pounding a regimental beat on her brain. Not only that, but her stomach was literally burbling. She could swear that she could feel her abdomen shifting like a stormy ocean. She quickly rolled over as the need to vomit overcame her, but she only managed a dry heave; she hadn't eaten in hours.

She forced herself to sit up. She was lying on the floor next to the block operating table. As she recalled her short term memory, she reached up to feel her neck. Semi coagulated blood covered most of the left side, but a moment of scraping later removed it, and she found that the bite wasn't as bad as it felt. Quite small actually, but it itched something terrible.

In fact, now that she thought about it, an uncomfortable itching sensation had spread right across her chest and into her shoulder. She shifted in discomfort but didn't even bother to try and scratch. She felt too sick to concentrate on it.

She looked around the lab. Nothing had changed except for the lights being a bit brighter. The door was still closed. As she expected, the fiend was back in his chair, typing away madly. Donna's eyes narrowed as her bad temper overrode sickness. She forced herself to her feet and approached.

When she was standing next to him she found herself at a loose end. He'd made no indication that he knew she was awake and showed no reaction to her coming close to him. He just continued typing away at high speed. Donna stood there for a moment, trying to decide what to do. Hitting him seemed out of the question after the last battle she'd had with him. She could try poking something in the hole where his eye used to be, but just looking at it was enough to make her want to puke. She could try grabbing one of the computers and typing something at random, but she didn't think that would help the situation at all. So she just did the first thing she could think of.

"I can type well faster than that."

Wesker slapped the keyboard as hard as he could across the room, shattering it into a million pieces and making Donna jump away in shock.

"You may be interested to know," he said as he turned his chair to face her "that Leon S. Kennedy has recently sent a message to the U.S. government to request backup."

"Oh," Donna honestly didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but Wesker was obviously unhappy about so she decided on the former. "Good. That means you're living on borrowed time now, huh? It'll be good being stuck in here just so I can see what they do to you when they arrive."

Frowning slightly, Wesker pushed himself out of his chair and cleared the distance between them.

'_Uh oh, I put my foot in it again_.' Donna thought, but she was not going to be threatened by a bully. She stood her ground and gave him the best haughty look she could muster.

"Strange; if you're here to steal my research for your own ends you should be concerned that the American military is about to get their hands on it, but you honestly don't seem to care, do you"

Before she could answer, Wesker's hand shot out and moved Donna's head so he could see the damage he'd done. The Londoner internally winced at the cruel treatment but refused to show it, keeping eye contact with the despicable creature in front of her.

"Who are you Donna Noble?" he asked in a silky tone. He obviously wasn't expecting an answer, but she answered anyway.

"I'm one of the people who's come here to stop you."

He smiled coldly, then turned away and returned to his chair.

"What's happened to Claire?" she demanded as she joined Wesker in front of his mainframe. Wesker chuckled darkly and pointed out of the wide window at the front of the lab.

The arena beyond had changed drastically. From where she was standing, Donna could see that the floor outside was several metres lower than the lab. Between the base of the lab window and the vast pillars at the other side of the arena, multiple metal panels had risen from the floor turning the place into some sort of maze. Directly in front of the window was a pillar that was elevated until was higher even than the room that Donna and Wesker were trapped in. An orange capsule balanced precariously on top.

"Sometimes it's necessary to train B.O.W's in an unusual environment, so I had this built. It's also quite useful for dealing with trespasses.

"Where's Claire?" Donna demanded.

Wesker tapped a button and a screen flashed into life. It showed Claire dashing down one of the makeshift passageways in the maze cradling machine gun she'd found somewhere. As Donna watched, a part of the floor Claire stepped on depressed slightly. The young girl instantly dived forward and threw herself flat on the floor. Not a moment too soon either as a mechanical arm burst out of the wall at waist height and swept the passageway in a ten foot radius, the circular saw blades attached to it buzzing like mad. As Claire rolled from under the reach of the arm, something else appeared at the end of the passage from the direction she'd been running from. A zombie, head drenched in blood, was sprinting like an athlete towards Claire. She fell onto one knee and began firing at it. The monster ignored the attack and made a leap over the metal arm that was still cutting up thin air, showing an agility that would have looked more natural coming from an orangutan. As it fell towards it's enemy it revealed taloned hands that began swinging dangerously in preparation to tear at living flesh.

Donna gasped, but Claire was ready. As the creature approached, she rose to her feet and met it part way with her gun held sideways on. As the impact came she twisted the gun to the side so that the zombie's own momentum repelled it from Claire and into the wall. She quickly finished it off with a burst of fire to the back of it's skull.

Claire stood still for a moment to catch her breath, unaware that Donna was watching her with concern gripping her heart, but more importantly not noticing that one of the skinless monsters with an exposed brain and claws instead of hands was creeping over the wall toward her.

"Wesker, you've got to stop this!" Donna exclaimed. She looked at the man, only to see that he was leaning back in his chair casually.

"It'll kill her!" she pleaded.

"Yes, it probably will." he replied with amused interest.

At that moment she could have hit him, but there were more important things to worry about.

"Let me warn her or something. Just give her a fighting chance."

Wesker laughed, then raised his legs and rested then on the desk. As he did, he nudged over a mike as a hint. Donna immediately grabbed it and pressed the button on the base.

"Claire, can you hear me?" Donna all but shouted. The image on the monitor suggested that the answer was no. No change. The monster was getting closer.

Thinking fast, Donna followed the wires from the monitor until she found a keyboard that was attached to it. She pulled it towards her and began typing rapidly. Wesker nodded appreciably and said "That _is_fast typing." but she ignored him. She went through the options that overlaid the live performance of 'Claire Redfield's demise' as fast as she could.

She finally found 'Audio options' just as Claire was starting to move on, still not noticing the nearby licker. Donna found the option to activate the mike and pressed 'Enter'. The loading bar appeared, adding a few more seconds of torture...

The licker was getting closer.

... then at last the bar was gone.

"CLAIRE, LOOK OUT!" Donna screamed hysterically into the mike.

If Claire was surprised, it was nothing compared to the monster's reaction. It twisted it's sightless face towards the source of the noise and shrieked like a banshee, then flung itself toward the camera and hit the wall with a crack of it's cheek bones. It fell to the floor and landed on it's back, prompting Claire to machine gun it's exposed belly. It quickly flipped over and darted to the side, lashing out with it's tongue. Claire danced back a step as the sharp tip of the tongue scratched her hand and whipped the gun out of her grasp. Then it roared and lunged at Claire with a bladed hand raised high. Claire ducked beneath the attack. The licked flew over her head, and then scattered in a cloud of red mist as it was smashed apart by the mechanical arm and it's mounted blades.

Both Donna and Claire sighed in relief while Wesker let out a small laugh.

'_Donna, is that you?'_ Claire's voice called over the speaker.

"Yes, I'm here!" Donna spoke back into the mike. "Are you alright?"

'_Yeah, I'm fine- what about you_?'

"I'm okay. Well, the doors are jammed shut so I'm trapped in this room with blondie here." she glared at Wesker as though it were his fault, to which he simply raised an eyebrow.

'_I know, I couldn't get the door open. I wanted to come back and help but_-'

"Don't worry about it. Just get out of there and find the Doctor. He can sort this out."

'_But I'm lost, and this place is crawling with monsters._' Claire spoke despairingly, and Donna felt a knot of anxiety twist her already unsettled stomach.

She looked out into the arena, hoping to find some inspiration. As she looked, however, she noticed that from her slightly raised position, Donna could see all the paths through the twisting labyrinth. She quickly looked over the whole place, trying to take it all in then returned to the mike.

"Claire, could you do me a favour? Could you try and shoot out the gears on that swinging arm thing because I've got a really bad feeling about it."

Claire gave an odd look at the camera, but she'd come to trust her unusual partner and didn't argue. Retrieving her gun, Claire turned the weapon on the mechanical pendulum and let rip with a burst of automatic fire, right into the base of the arm.

At the same moment, Donna looked up and scanned the arena. It didn't take long for her to find the flashes of gun reports and sparking mechanics over to the far left of the vast room. She quickly looked over the surrounding paths, noting that the location was practically at the edge of the room and that a wide area flush against the wall was stacked with crates and accompanied by words stencilled on the wall's cast iron surface to explain their purpose.

"Claire, I can see where you are in the maze!" Donna said excitedly. "The path you're on doesn't lead out of there, but it leads to a place where there's a sign saying 'Weapon Storage.' If you wanna get out go back to the last junction and go righ-"

"I think you've said enough." Wesker said in a calm voice, tinged with only the slightest hint of irritation. At the same time he spoke, he stood up and clamped a hand round the back of Donna's neck.

Donna's entire body spasmed and went rigid as Wesker's powerful grip crushed against her spinal cord. She grunted in pain. Wesker's only response was to casually toss her aside, bouncing her off the edge of the desk and sending her sprawling to the floor, followed by a keyboard and some files she hit on the way.

Claire heard the commotion and glared fiercely at the camera.

'_Wesker, if you hurt Donna I swear you will die_!'

"I've heard that threat many times before, and they've all been as empty as each other. If I were you I'd save my breath, because you going to have to do a considerable amount of running."

With that, Wesker typed a command into one of his miscellaneous keyboards, and a clank of metal and few echoing growls announced the release of more monsters into the maze.

"Wesker, this is insane!" Donna protested as she lurched to her feet and made it to his chair "You've got to stop this!"

Wesker tapped a few more buttons, and the monitor showing Claire died with a whine, closely followed by the microphone.

"No." he said as he looked at Donna with his single eye. "I won't stop. This is everything I've worked for and I won't be stopped now, least of all by a woman who lacks the intelligence to realise that a volatile personality is not going to get the better of me. Soon the whole world will know the power of the union virus, and nothing can stop it."

"What's the union virus?" the red haired Londoner demanded, getting even more frustrated with the man.

"A revolution in the making; something that'll give birth to a whole new race of creatures, who are naturally designed to recognise the superiority of the virus in my body."

"And what virus is that then?"

"You'll find out," Wesker eyed the wound in Donna's neck "in good time."

Donna glared at Wesker in silent rage, not understanding that he was leering at her injury rather than her figure.

"I'm warning you blondie, you're treading on very thin ice."

Wesker laughed coldly and turned back to his console with a smug smile. Donna prepared herself to give him a taste of a 'Donna Noble rant', but suddenly the man sat forward and looked at one of the monitors intently.

"What's that?" he muttered to himself.

Donna leaned forward for a closer look. The information on the screen was a lot more complicated than she'd ever had any experience with, but her claim to being the best temp in Chiswick wasn't a groundless boast, and she quickly skimmed through and got the jist of it.

"Looks like the Doctor's getting closer," she taunted jovially "and looks like he's gotten hold of your chemistry sets. Hmm, I wonder what he can be up to? Making an anti-Wesker virus perhaps? Or maybe something for his athletes foot?"

Wesker ignored Donna's irritating rambling and began accessing the security in the area where his lab computers were being used.

* * *

"By the way," Chris asked as the Doctor closely watched the concoction he'd loaded into the cultivation machine "how exactly did that sonic machine help Jill."

The Doctor looked at him quickly.

"Well, cells are constantly shifting all the time." the machine beeped at them, and the Doctor quickly retrieved the chemical inside. "When the virus cells and Jill's cells hit each other that speeds up their reaction. The sonic waves helped keep the cells still so they wouldn't react, but of course the risk was that doing that could have stopped her heart moving as well. That or her heartbeat would have messed up the sonic waves and shut down the screwdriver. Either of those two; I'm not sure because obviously I've never wanted to try it out. Why do you ask?"

"Well," Chris tried to concentrate as the Doctor darted away without warning and began to administer the hyperactive mother virus to Jill, the B.O.W gas having been used already "just what the heck is a sonic screwdriver anyway? I mean, I appreciate your help and everything, but everything about you is just so weird."

"So you still think you can't trust me?" the Doctor didn't look up from his work. "Perfectly understandable of course- Rebecca it's ready, start healing her as best you can and don't stop till this light goes out."

The Doctor pushed the sonic screwdriver into Jill's hand and closed her fingers around it. He pressed a button near the base and the blue light on top flashed on. He turned back to Chris with a pleasant smile.

"Well you better keep a close eye on me while I see about saving Jill's life."

"I'm not saying I don't trust you." Chris sighed in exasperation as the Doctor went back to the computer he'd been using. "I just don't like working with someone that I can't understand. I mean, when we first met you just said your name was 'The Doctor'. What's that all about?"

"Fair point I 'spose." the Doctor conceded. "I usually give an alias, but you lot were annoying me with your high and mighty attitudes so I decided to annoy you back."

The Doctor carried on working while Chris took a moment to take what had just been said.

"So what _is_ your name then?" he finally asked.

"Don't have one. Just 'the Doctor'."

"No one's called just 'the Doctor'."

"Correction, I am. Now could you please shut up and help me with this?"

Chris shook his head and moved forward so he could see what the strange man had found. The computer showed an unusual collection of diagrams, along with several pages of related notes.

"I've got some more information on the T-virus, but I want some details from you." the Doctor explained as he vaguely indicated the monitor but looked at Chris. "First of all, when the T-virus spread throughout Racoon City was then any risk of the virus spreading beyond the city limits?"

"Yeah, they had the army cordon off the area for miles around."

"But were there actually any reported cases of T-virus carriers trying to leave the quarantine area?"

Chris stopped and thought carefully, wondering exactly what relevance the point had.

"None that I know of." he finally answered.

"And you told me the first time you came into contact with this virus was in a mansion beyond the city outskirts?"

"Yes; Doctor, what are you sayin-"

"You said there were attacks by the creatures there, but they didn't spread from the lab into the city?"

"Well, no. The city was contaminated from an Umbrella chemical plant."

"Which was _within_the city limits and connected to the whole city by the sewage pipes and drains," the Doctor recheck the documents on the computer as he pointed at Chris excitedly "Final question, do you know of any occasion where a T-virus infected creature has intentionally killed another T-virus infected creature, except in cases where the killing creature was in control of it's free will like Wesker, or was driven insane by mass mutation?"

"Well, a guy called Carlos said he'd seen a hunter kill a zombie in Racoon City, but I'm pretty sure he said those hunters had all been mutated. There's Nemesis I guess, but they're controlled to carry out tasks however necessary."

"Well that's it then." the Doctor said as though it were obvious.

"What?"

"I don't know," the Doctor, frowned then elaborated with "but I every case of T-virus infection, the virus has stopped when it's managed to create a balanced ecosystem in an enclosed environment, the same way it creates an ecosystem within the bodies of those it infects. Virus', as I said, consume the body and bodily functions and spread elsewhere when they're done, but the T-virus establishes itself in the environment it finds itself in, as though it's trying to live alongside those it infects. And as we saw with that security guard, Vasant, the virus doesn't actually consume the human's mind; it just sends it into a frenzied state which impairs it's ability to function properly."

"That sounds great Doctor," Chris nodded in transparently false understanding "but what's that got to do with making a cure?"

"Because if we find out what it is that the T-virus wants, we may just find out how to stop it."

"Well you better hurry," Rebecca looked up from her work "because the light on this screwdriver just went out."

"That should give us a few more minutes to come up with some sort of cure." the Doctor closed his eyes and put his hand to his forehead as he thought deeply.

"Both Wesker and Steve are able to use their conscious minds while infected, though Steve was driven insane by the extent of his mutation. That must mean the virus' they have are so unique that they don't want to try and spread to others, but the other virus' do."

"Well, that's the same as what all virus do, right?" Rebecca asked.

"Not quite. Normal virus' just spread to others wherever, whenever and however they can, but the T-virus is actively looking for people to infect. And it doesn't consume their bodies. According to the files on the computer the zombies in Racoon City lasted for several days despite being heavily infected."

The Doctor turned toward Steve.

"Steve, I don't suppose you know anything about the nature of the T-virus, do you? Overheard anything from Wesker at all?"

Steve failed to reply.

"I take that as a no then?"

Still no answer.

The Doctor turned away, wracking his brains for a solution. Chris opened his mouth to speak, when suddenly the Doctor held up his index finger, a look of open mouthed surprise on his face.

"I've just realised," he said "Steve hasn't stopped staring at those zombies since we came in here."

The Doctor darted back and stood directly in Steve's path. The huge monster blinked and slowly focused on the man in front of him.

"Steve, why are you string at these zombies in here?"

Steve gave a slight grunt, possible a verbal equivalent of a shrug.

"Steve, you're infected with virus similar to the one they have. Do you feel some sort of connection to them?"

The green face twisted into a sneer, and Steve growled for a moment before saying "They...are...the same."

"The same," the Doctor said excitedly "So you feel a connection with them because you're part of the same ecosystem that the T-virus has established in this base? Right now I'm planning to make a cure that will destroy the T-virus completely- what do you feel about that?"

"You..." he murmured in a tone that almost resembled uncertainty "help Claire... I help... the Doctor."

"But what do you feel about fighting the creatures like you?"

"... mustn't. Too few of them. Mustn't... kill them."

"Too few?" the Doctor looked puzzled. "What exactly does that mean?" but apparently Steve was either uncertain or unwilling to speak any further.

"The T-virus creatures don't willingly kill each other. That means they want the T-virus infected creatures to survive. Now what does that prove?'

"It proves nothing Doctor!" Rebecca shouted angrily "While you've been wasting time with him, Jill's wounds are reacting badly. She's going to mutate if we don't do something fast."

"She's right Doctor!" Chris joined in, panicked by the news "We have to save Jill! Who cares if the T-virus is trying to save itself? If w-"

"THAT'S IT!" the Doctor bellowed so loudly that even Steve started slightly.

"No- yes- no. Oh wait a bit..." the Doctor muttered and babbled with a hand clamped to his head, clearly stunned by the revelation that only he understood.

Then...

"Of course! Oh no." suddenly he looked distraught. "Oh no, that's bad. Oh shame on me; I should have known better than that."

"What the hell are you going on about?" Chris demanded.

"Oh," the Doctor said, as though only just remembering the others were there, and then he became excited again. "I've finally worked it out!"

"Worked what out?" Rebecca asked in bafflement.

"The behaviour of the T-virus. I know what it is, how it works and how to get the better of it!"

"Then tell us, quick!"

"Alright. First off, millions of years ago the mother virus wasn't a virus; it was a natural immunity substance produced by the appendix in all simian creatures. I'm mean, if you think about it makes sense. Since the end of the Jurassic age the earth would have been chaotic, both in terms of the environment and in terms of developed and undeveloped organisms. The apes at that time would need something to protect them from injury and drastic environmental changes if they were going to survive, so the immunitysubstance contained regenerative cells to heal them, and could induce immediate and extreme mutations to adapt to whatever the apes might encounter. But after a few thousand years the atmosphere stabilises, the earth balances out and the immunity substance becomes unnecessary; evolution begins to remove it. But the substance doesn't follow evolution. It just does what's necessary for survival, and when the immunity substance started to die out instead of adapting the apes it adapted itself- into a virus!"

Chris and Rebecca looked at each other for a moment, only just following what the Doctor was saying.

"Parts of a body can be lost through evolution but a virus can survive forever, staying dormant until the time is right for a comeback. When the mother virus was found in a frozen gorilla's body it spread to the researchers who found it as quickly as possible, and once it had done that it carried on as normal, causing mutations that were supposed to benefit those it infected. But the mother virus was out of date. It was too weak to cope with modern day people after being away for so long. It couldn't cause extreme mutations and couldn't spread very effectively. That's when it was taken for research and combined with ebola. By altering the mother virus into the T-virus they unlocked the potential that had been lost in time, making the virus far stronger and able to cause more mutation, even though a disease as destructive as ebola causes decomposition in the weaker creatures like zombies. But the virus doesn't just want to infect small numbers of people. It wants to establish itself in the environment, just like it originally was."

The Doctor slammed his palm down on a desk.

"That's why all those who are infected are so desperate to attack others. Remember what Vasant said 'There are too few of us.'? The virus is facing extinction and is desperately forcing the people it infects to try and spread it further afield. The urge to spread the virus must be as natural and primal as an animal's need to eat or mate. So strong that the infected lose control of most of their higher brain functions, but it doesn't make them totally mindless; that's why the zombies in the freezer room weren't distracted by the charred meat we tossed at them. They're looking to spread the virus, not to eat. Wesker hasn't lost his mind to his virus because it's not trying to force him to spread it further, because as I said it's too unique to try spreading to multiple beings so it's created a perfect ecosystem with his body and then stopped there. And just think- Racoon City. When everything within the city's natural boundaries was contaminated it stopped spreading further. The virus could sense it was in a stable and enclosed environment and decided not to go on. If the city had been left for a few days or weeks the infected people's need to spread the virus may have died down and they might have got their minds back. But now the virus has been reduced to the creatures in this base, and it's trying to spread throughout the whole base and make it completely open to viral infection so that it can create an ecosystem to support itself here. In short, Chris Redfield and Rebecca Chambers, and Steve if you're listening, the reason the virus is so hard to cure is because, like human beings, if you threaten it's life it will fight to the bitter end to survive."

The Doctor shook his head while Chris and Rebecca looked slightly dazed by the tidal wave of information.

"I can't believe how thick I've been. Totally _thick_ thick. I've really messed up this time. All this time I've been talking about finding a way to destroy the T-virus, but I'm supposed to be the one who's trying to avoid being violent. It's trying to destroy the T-virus that makes it react so strongly when it infects creatures. All it wants to do is live. I should have been the one trying to find an alternative to killing it. Now I feel really ashamed of myself."

"How do we cure it?" a voice croaked.

Everyone threw their sight to Jill, who was slowly opening her eyes and struggling to sit up. The Doctor quickly joined the Survivors.

"I'm not going to find a cure, Jill. It's far too dangerous. The T-virus' reaction could be catastrophic. But I am going to do something. Something a lot better than destroy the T-virus."

"What?" Chris and Rebecca asked simultaneously.

"I'm going to save the T-virus!"

* * *

Wesker stared open mouthed at the monitor, unable to believe what he was hearing.

'_The reason the T-virus is spreading so much and causing people to lose their minds is because it's afraid it will become extinct. If I alter the T-virus so that it doesn't cause mutation or rotting flesh, it will be perfectly safe for people to be infected with it. Then, we'll simply allow it to spread to massive numbers of people. The virus will realise that it's no longer under threat of dying out completely at it will adapt itself to so that it can survive in a more or less dormant state in the bodies of the infected. If I alter it correctly it will have virtually no affect of any living thing at all, ever again. It will only take me a few minutes, and then we'll have our own fully functional D-virus, strong enough to cancel out the mother virus and all it's variants_.'

Wesker was routed to the spot. Within an hour of arriving the Doctor had just solved the mystery behind the mother virus origins and behaviour, and was using _his_ lab to concoct something to pacify the T-virus once and for all.

"All my work..." he whispered, grasping the sides of his head as he watched the security camera's point of view of the Doctor charging round the lab, grabbing bottles and files and quickly taking blood samples from everyone, including Steve Burnside.

"Everything I've worked for; destroyed in a single blow." he said as he tried to comprehend the extent of the threat the Doctor now posed.

"Never mind, Al," Donna cut in unhelpfully, voice dripping with sarcasm "when this is all over maybe you could 'ave a career in hairdressing?"

Wesker bared his teeth and seized a keyboard from his desk.

"This isn't over yet, Donna Noble. I've still got you hostage, Claire's still trapped somewhere in the maze and I still have the union virus." Wesker's snarl suddenly became a grin. "Still one more trick up my sleeve." he said, before typing at top speed.


	10. Chapter 10

The Doctor lifted another tube out of the cultivation machine and put the one he'd been holding in the incubator. He then took another one out of the incubator, looked for somewhere to put it, and failing to find a place clamped it between his teeth. He then began vigorously shaking the tube in his hand while using his free hand to type a command into the centrifuge that was spinning a sample of Jill's blood around at a speed that would surely tear a person's hand off if it was careless enough to get too close. While doing this he began tilting his head from side to side so that the liquid in the tube he held in his mouth gently sloshed around without beginning to clot.

While the Doctor engaged in this remarkable display of coordination, Chris and Rebecca did what they could to help Jill.

"Are you sure this is safe Doctor?" Rebecca asked for the umpteenth time. "If this goes wrong we could end up helping the T-virus research."

"-os-it-iv," the Time Lord mumbled around the tube. He then added "-unce it -ead," before finishing with the centrifuge and plucking the glass cylinder from his mouth.

"Once it's spread all other versions of the T-virus or mother virus will be too weak to overcome it. The D-virus will ensure no one can ever be infected by the T-virus again."

"The problem with your plan," Chris interjected "is that it hinges on infecting every person in the world with a virus made from the same toxin that made the T-virus. Even if we could find a way to spread it how do you know it'll be safe?"

"It's very sturdy at a cellular level, so it can't be damaged easily and it's very good at spreading. That'll prevent it from panic reacting to a threat and affecting the brain. Plus I'm going to integrate it's basic cell structure into the average components of human blood so that it adaptively responds to each individual it infects- that's long way of saying that the D-virus will want to establish itself inside the body of the person it infects before trying to spread further. That means it will suppress any functions that would damage the human body, such as cellular deterioration. No point saving people from turning into rotting, mindless flesh eating monsters if we just turn them into rotting, mindful, regular eating people. As for how we spread it, hopefully we can find something on the computer about how Wesker was planning to spread his viruses."

"And what about Jill? The T-virus is the only thing keeping her alive, and by the look of it the change is starting."

The Doctor paused for a moment and gave Jill an anguished look. She was fully awake now, but barely able to concentrate with the pain she was in. Rebecca was trying as best she could to help but was fighting a losing battle to stem bleeding that would normally have been fatal without daring to use first aid spray, the trick with the B.O.W gas being too volatile for Jill's body to endure a second time. Already the devastating wounds were gaining colour, the edges of the ruined skin growing purple and green, as though they were horrific bruises.

"I'm still trying to think of a way to deal with that." the Doctor confessed. "Just do what you can for her. This new virus is going to take some time."

"_Then you can stop right now_." a dark voice demanded from the ceiling.

* * *

On the screen, the former S.T.A.R.S members looked to the roof, while the Doctor looked about wildly in utter confusion till he found the security camera.

"_How did you find us_?" he questioned through the speakers. "_I scrambled the security in this place. It should have taken you at least ten more minutes to pin point our location_."

"You're using my computers, Doctor." Wesker explained simply.

"_Oh of course,_" the Doctor whined in disappointment "_all the computerised data comes from a central mainframe. All you have to do is monitor where the data is acquired from and you know what systems are being used and where they're being used. In fairness, I could have done something about that if I'd thought of it._"

"But you didn't think of it, and now it seems you've found a potential cure for the T-vir-"

"_No. Not a cure. A cure would kill the T-virus. All the T-virus wants to do is live. Is that so much to ask_?"

"Well since you have a way of destroying all my virus research, I think it's time for a little negotiation."

"_Oh yeah_?" the Doctor gave a cheerful smile at the camera before he started running round preparing his virus pacifier. Wesker was ready for this sort of dismissal from the Doctor, and a tap of a button shut down the device the Doctor was using at that moment. However, the Doctor was equally prepared for such an obstruction by Wesker, and a blast of his sonic device reactivated the machine. The Doctor continued as though nothing had happened, preparing his formula. Wesker stared at the screen for a moment, and then recomposed himself.

"Yes Doctor. Negotiation." he glanced at Donna who was hovering at his side, watching the screen. "The cure, for your friends."

* * *

The Time Lord froze, then looked at the camera with an expression of bitterness.

"You'd use them to force me not to make this new virus?" he asked rhetorically.

"_I'm afraid so_." Wesker's voice echoed from all sides of the lab.

"And let me guess," Rebecca called out furiously "you've just forgotten that without that cure, Jill will turn into a monster and try to kill us?"

"_If the only safe way to deal with your friend is to kill her, that's your choice. Of course, from what I've seen of the Doctor's work so far, he hasn't actually found a way to safely nullify the T-virus in Jill's body without stopping the regenerative genes that are keeping her alive_."

Both Chris and Rebecca looked accusingly at the Doctor. When he didn't answer, Wesker's voice laughed cruelly.

* * *

"For all your genius, Doctor, you still haven't found a way to save those already infected. The creatures that are infected rely on the T-virus remaining active in their body to keep them alive. As you said yourself, the T-virus establishes a balanced ecosystem with the infected. Disrupt that ecosystem and both the virus and those infected will die."

The Doctor failed to reply. The silence spoke volumes.

"You are so _sick_!" Donna hissed at Wesker. Wesker remained silent, having said enough to make his point.

"_It's not just about curing me_." interjected a strained voice. Everyone, including Wesker and Donna, looked at Jill. She was forcing herself up onto her elbows, despite Rebecca trying to make her lie still.

"_Those who haven't been infected yet can be made immune to your biological weapons. It doesn't matter if I can't be saved. All that matters is that we stop you._'

Jill fell back, tired out by the effort, but it seemed to have been enough to put some hope back in the Doctor's eyes.

"Very courageous Jill," Wesker mocked, albeit in a grumpy tone "but you forget I still have Donna and Claire."

Donna quickly grabbed the mike and said "Claire's not here! She escap-" but then Wesker grabbed it back and clamped one of his wide palms over Donna's mouth.

* * *

The brief and reassuring sound of Donna's voice was drowned out by muffled ranting. Chris never thought he'd find that annoying woman's voice so comforting, but hearing her defy Wesker by warning them that his sister was relatively safe filled him with pride.

"So, Claire got the better of you? Guess it must run in our family."

"_Maybe, but I still have this _idiot _at my mercy_."

Donna's muffled voice came faintly through the speakers again, sounding suspiciously like a collection of very unladylike words.

"_Besides, I have one more trick up my sleeve. The union virus_."

Everyone tensed.

They'd heard Wesker give several warnings of a new and improved virus. Donna had informed them of it's name. And now the shadow of threat was about to become a reality.

"What's the union virus?" the Doctor asked.

"_Although you solved the whole mystery of the T-virus, I too had recently concluded that the virus works in an ecosystem, and that those infected had a specific interest is spreading the virus to others. As you guessed, my specially designed virus that I used on myself only worked because it was so heavily concentrated. So instead of making me want to spread the virus, it enhanced my abilities so that I'd be better at defending myself from being destroyed, which would in turn destroy the virus in me. But the most interesting thing is that most virus infected creatures don't attack me. They recognise that the viral balance in me is best not disrupted so they leave me alone. This is what led me to the union virus_."

"But what is the union virus?" the Doctor insisted.

"_You may be wondering why I spent such effort on trying to get samples of the __T-Veronica __virus and the __plagas__ parasites. The T-V virus was based on an ancient virus found in an ant. The virus had an, as of yet, unknown bearing on the way a queen ant rules a colony and the other ants depend on her to survive. Steve Burnside provided those samples_."

"When I looked into Steve's mind," the Doctor said quietly to himself "he had the conscious of a hive mind. Minds interlinked. Marry that with the T-virus ecosystem theory...no." suddenly the man looked horrified. He looked up at the camera.

"Oh no... no, you can't have."

"_The __plagas__, again, were good examples of a hive mind, but more importantly gave insight into the ability to control creatures infected with inferior strains of the same virus and an understanding of a parasites ability to manipulate it's hosts both mentally and physically. All that combined made the union virus-_"

"And what is the union virus?" Chris demanded, anticipation driving him mad.

"_The union virus is basically the __T-Veronica __virus with artificially created parasites intermingled within it. Normally I'd use an experimental nanomachine for such a task, but the mother virus rejects them. The parasites act as a viral equivalent of fear hormones, meaning no matter what ecosystem the virus creates for itself it will still panic react and try to spread to more and more people. It's the most contagious virus in existence_."

"So that way it's easier and quicker to spread?" Chris looked hatefully at the camera as though he were making eye contact with his former captain. There truly was no end to Wesker's depraved mind.

"That's only the half of it Chris." the Doctor said grimly.

"_Quite right Doctor_." Wesker gloated. "_The union virus infects as it usually does, but as I said before parasites can manipulate cells. The parasites will suppress all union virus activity, except for spreading and multiplying itself of course. There is, however, one other function that won't be suppressed by the parasites; the function of manipulating the minds of the infected into a hive mind. Can you imagine it? Every living creature on the planet- beasts, plants and humans; all linked together in a psychic net_."

"And since the T-virus automatically recognises your particular virus as superior..." the Doctor began.

"..._so anyone and everyone infected with the union virus will a recognise ME as superior_." Wesker finished. "_The entire world linked by my mind_."

Another silence followed as everyone tried to comprehend the horror that Wesker proposed. But he still wasn't done.

"_And with all I've learned from the plagas, a slight adjustment to the virus in my body will allow me to inherit the ability to control all those infected. Control them to carry on with their lives, or to carry out specific tasks that I command, or even control the virus itself to begin causing mutation. There was a time when only one in ten million could be turned into a Tyrant. With the union virus I can force whatever barriers that repel the T-virus infection to stand aside and create _millions _of Tyrants if I wish. I'll be able to mutate people any way I like, and if anyone doesn't like what I'm doing I can just manipulate their mind to feel pleasure at anything I choose to do with the virus_."

"That's insane!" Chris shouted.

"How could you even hope for such a thing to work?" the Doctor said with a mix of disbelief and despair. "The thoughts of every person running through your head would fry yer brains!"

* * *

"Do you really think, Doctor, that I haven't thought of that? I don't intent to allow every thought in the world to enter my mind all at once. Besides which, with hive mind creating a semi-psychic link between minds, is it impossible that I might use other minds to store data for me? It's only a theory, but once the virus is spread throughout major population centres I'll be able to experiment with the possibility of forcing people to absorb more information than others. Sort of like a biological memory stick." Wesker laughed openly.

Donna couldn't decide whether to be enraged or horrified. Wesker really was out of his tiny mind! With a sudden surge of determination she forced herself free from his grip.

"How do you plan to spread it to so many people?" she asked hoarsely as she coughed and spluttered. "The moment people realise what you're doing there'll be quarantines and investigations. If thousands of people's minds get linked to yours it won't take 'em long to find out where you are."

"Which is why I would need to infect the majority of the population of the earth all in one go, and I've already thought of that. The original Umbrella came up with the idea of delivering the T-virus via missile strike."

"_But that couldn't possibly work_." again, the Doctor protested. "_The missiles would be intercepted and destroyed. The virus would burn up_."

"Correct, Doctor. Which is why the armed and ready missiles I have waiting to be deployed in this base don't have enough fuel or durability to make it all the way to their targets. Only enough to make it into the sky, out of the atmosphere..."

"Into space?" Donna asked as she remembered the computer announcing the union virus had been through vacuum and low gravity tests.

"... where the missiles will break open," Wesker continued without pause "allowing the virus to fall back to earth. By the time the virus containers themselves have broken open, most will be safely through the ozone layer, where the virus can spread though the air over massive areas. While the governments of the world think that the missiles were destroyed accidently and believe there is no immediate threat to their people, the virus will contaminate hundreds of thousands. My estimates suggest that by the time the virus affects can be noticed, nine tenths of the human race will have been infected."

"_And the remaining, uninfected people can be crushed in an instant_." The Doctor said with a distant look on his face. "_One tenth of the population..._"

"Doomed," Wesker finished for him "and I'll only need four missiles to do it. So if I were you, I'd think twice about finishing that cure, unless you want me to begin infecting the world right now."

"Doctor," Donna took the mike back from Wesker "if the union virus is dormant at first, your D-virus can just cure it without hurting those it infects, right?"

Wesker snatched the mike back.

"What you're forgetting, Donna Noble," Wesker spoke into the mike at the same time, for the benefit of everyone else "is that by the time the Doctor can get the cure to large numbers of people, I would have had plenty of time to infect and mutate the human race beyond recognition. Even if the Doctor finds a way to cure an active virus infection without killing the infected, which quite frankly looks very unlikely at the moment, how do you think the world will react to getting their minds back, only to find they've been transformed into monsters?"

He turned back to the figures on the screen.

"So, Doctor," he sneered while the Doctor looked him fiercely in the eye, even thought the Doctor could only see a camera lens "you should think twice about making that cure, or I might be tempted to make a few people suffer, starting with Ms Noble."

Donna took one step forward so that she was in front of Wesker, and slapped him. _Hard_.

"You are such a piece of scum, Wesker!" she shouted, earning surprised looks from Wesker and those listening over the radio waves. "I've never heard of anything so foul in all my life. You won't get away with this, I promise you that, _mate_! And if you think I'm going to let you use me to try and stop the Doctor then you've got another thing coming!"

Wesker stood up and opened his mouth to give a furious reply, but this time Donna actually punched him, knocking him backwards over the arm of his chair.

"_Donna, stop_!" the Doctor was crying frantically.

"Doctor," Donna grabbed the mike "don't worry about me! Just make that cure, and hurry up about it! You've got to stop Wesker!"

And without listening to another word, Donna grabbed Wesker's new cup of coffee and poured it over the monitor, the mike, and the board Wesker had used to shut down the device the Doctor had been using. By the time Wesker was back on his feet and had grabbed Donna by the hair, the cup was empty and another piece of his console was beyond use.

"I've got to stop leaving coffee there." he said dryly.

* * *

It was a moment of shocked silence for the Doctor and his companions. The noise from the speakers had crackled out and the light on the camera had gone into standby mode, but they went on staring at it in a state of disbelief. Donna Noble had just tried to take on Albert Wesker and had cut him off from spying on them.

The Doctor could feel his hearts clench as he considered what Donna may have just let herself in for.

Donna Noble. The woman who held so much potential yet had kept it hidden all her life, and had now unleashed that potential for him- for the Doctor. Putting her life at risk to help the Doctor's cause, to help those he was trying to save. He felt somehow ashamed; unworthy of what she'd done for him, but at the same time slightly proud of the woman she'd become in the short time she'd travelled with him.

"Oh Donna," he whispered "stupid, stupid, brave Donna; what have you done now?"

A powerful hand grasped the Doctor's shoulder. He looked round in surprise and found himself looking at Chris.

"We'll save her Doctor." he promised solemnly. "She's given us the chance to end this. Without him watching you can finish making that cure. We won't leave her behind after doing that."

The Doctor looked back at the camera.

"You're right," he muttered "we will save her. But first..."

Suddenly he broke away from Chris and snatched together the chemicals he'd been using.

"...this formula needs altering slightly. I was hoping I wouldn't have to do this, but it looks like I've got no choice."

"About what?"

"The D-virus was going to work like a vaccine, stopping uninfected people from catching the T-virus. But if there's a risk that this union virus can infect vast numbers of people before we can use our virus then we have to be sure our virus is strong enough to stop the union virus in whatever state in might be in. The only way to be sure to guarantee protection from the union virus is to imbue the D-virus with the ability to assimilate similar virus cells through dominant gene immunity functions."

Jill groaned in a combination of pain and frustration and sat up again.

"Is that supposed to mean something to us?" she asked.

"I'm going to have to change the D-virus so that if it comes into contact with a dormant T-virus, union virus or mother virus, it will actually destroy the virus cells and take over rather than just pacifying it. But that means if it comes into contact with an active virus it will realise that it's superior and will start converting the virus that's already present into more D-virus. The process will traumatise the virus/creature ecosystem and will badly damage the cells belonging to the infected creature itself, and neither of the viruses will be able to help repair the damage because they will have both stalled each other. That means anyone who's already infected with an active virus will die when they contract the D-virus."

The Doctor stared glumly at the combined fluids in the tube in his hand.

"On the one hand we can theoretically save multiple millions from infection, and on the other there are probably nearly a hundred creatures in here that will die because of this formula. You lot would probably be glad to know that with so many virus cells in his body, Wesker's entire physical form will become dormant and die if infected with this.

"And what about me?" Jill asked quietly, to which the Doctor did not reply.

"Wesker was right then?" Chris said, part dejectedly, part scornfully. "The virus you're making will kill her if you use it on her?"

"The D-virus will reduce the efficiency of first aid spray by about fifty percent because it consumes cells that are similar to it, including the regeneration cells in the spray. Even if I used the first version of this virus on Jill that wouldn't be enough to save her. In it's weaker form, the D-virus will just create an ecosystem with the virus that's already in her- it has no affect on active virus'."

"Then what _can _save her?" Chris demanded, beginning to lose his temper.

"Just give me a moment. First I need to make some of the new D-virus. We need to have that ready if we're going to stop the union virus. The first thing we need to do is give Jill a dose of D-virus to stop the T-virus that's in her from causing mutations. It'll also be a chance to check that it works the way it should. Once she'd taken the D-virus, the T-virus will stop stabilising her condition, which means we have to do something to try and heal the wounds the moment 'D' takes effect."

"But we can't use first aid spray because the D-virus will eat most of it, right?" Jill grunted in pain.

"Exactly. There's only one thing I can think of that might work." the Doctor grabbed a can of first aid spray that had been left on a table next to Jill. "I might be able to use the sonic screwdriver to make the regenerative cells in the spray hyperactive, which hopefully will give it the extra 'oomph' it needs to do it's job without being weakened by the D-virus."

The Doctor set to work on the can.

"What are the chances of this working Doctor?" Chris asked.

"I don't know Chris." the Doctor replied truthfully. "Just give me some time."

* * *

A few minutes after her attempted attack on Wesker, Donna found her hands bound by one of the straps on the corner of the operating table. She turned her head to give Wesker a dark glare as he ran a hand over his jaw.

"All of a sudden, quite a bit stronger than you look. That's very interesting."

"Yeah, and there's plenty more where that came from, mate!" she replied as she fiercely yanked at the straps. She looked back at them and tried to loosen them with her teeth as Wesker headed back to his desk.

"Now we just need to prepare the missiles and wait to see what the Doctor does."

Donna strained to get free but quickly gave up as the straps bit painfully into her skin. She turned around as best she could to watch what Wesker was doing.

"Al, why are you doing this?"

Wesker spun his chair around so he could look Donna in the eye.

"Don't you realise the potential the union virus holds?" he asked. "My virus research has led to such an advanced understanding of life itself. The human race is weak, but the union virus will make it strong; so strong the entire world revolutionised by it. Why wouldn't I want to do this? I'm about to change the whole world."

Donna shook her head.

"You're just mad."

"No, it's you who lack vision." Wesker smiled coldly just before turning his back on Donna. "Once the union virus has spread, however, the entire human race will be able to share my vision, starting with you."

Wesker laughed out loud.

"Doesn't that sound brilliant?"

Donna didn't answer. She returned her attention to trying to break free.

* * *

The air was thick with desperation.

The Doctor stared blankly at the three objects in front him- two tubes of chemicals and one can of first aid spray. Jill was lying back on the desk she'd been placed on, breathing deeply with her jaw set firmly. Chris and Rebecca had clearly worked themselves into a frenzied state, but had exhausted themselves to silence. Steve had finally turned from watching the encased zombies so that he could survey the scene through his bloody eyes, though whether he cared at all was another matter.

"Just do it." Jill said in a voice that was surprisingly calm for a woman with deep and ugly gashes mutilating her abdomen.

"You can't," said Rebecca to no one in particular, her voice close to breaking "there must be another way."

They lapsed into silence once again. Chris began pacing the floor behind Jill's desk like a caged animal, casting looks of both anger and anguish between the Doctor and Jill herself. Eventually the Doctor pointed at the test tube on his left and spoke softly.

"D-virus type one. Neutralises dormant viruses and newly contracted viruses. Has no effect on an active virus." he pointed at the test tube dead ahead. "D-virus type two. Consumes both dormant and newly contracted viruses without harming the host. Terminates active viruses and causes massive damage to the virus carrier as a result; fatal damage." he then pointed at the aerosol on his right. "Enhanced first aid spray. Doesn't cause apoptosis when it meets a one of the viruses but combines with it, increasing it's reaction time and jump-starting dormant virus'."

The Doctor stood up and turned so he could address everyone, chiefly Jill and Steve.

"I'm sorry." he said with a hint of despair betraying his calm and cool exterior "there's no way to help those who have an active virus in their blood. Anyone who contracts the D-virus and already has an active virus in them will die."

"There has to be another way." Chris demanded. "Steve and Wesker have a unique virus in them that doesn't work like the T-virus. Can't you do something with that?"

"The Wesker virus would have the strength to match the D-virus. If both those viruses meet each other they'll both make each other dormant and shut down the body of the infected."

"So test the D-virus on me." insisted Jill. "You can't save me, so the only thing worth doing is testing to see if your D-virus works the way it should."

The Doctor gave a small sign, as though resigned to failure, but didn't move to do as Jill said. Chris filled the moment of inaction by crouching next to Jill.

"Jill," he said softly, placing one of his ham like hands on one of her small and dexterous hands "you can't ask us to just kill you; not after all we've been through. We came here to stop Wesker together, so we could all put the mansion and Racoon City and everything else behind us. We can't lose each other now."

For the first time since the mission began, Jill smiled. For a brief second of bliss, the darkness of the situation faded from Chris' mind, and he considered for that second just how beautiful Jill was, before the cruelty of reality returned.

"... I'm not going to make it Chris." she stated.

The atmosphere paused for a moment. Chris pulled Jill's hand toward him and grasped it with his other hand. They lapsed into silence.

Rebecca let them be and went to the Doctor's side.

"There has to be something you can do!" she pleaded.

The Doctor refused to answer, or even to look at Rebecca.

"She's one of us. Jill's our friend, Doctor. She and Chris... you _must_ do something.

"The burden's on me." the Doctor echoed his earlier words to her. "When all else fails, it falls to me to do what must be done."

He picked up the enhanced version of the D-virus, looking at Rebecca with grim acceptance of a man faced with unavoidable doom.

"If we do nothing, Jill will become a monster, any second now. Once we use this, her blood and internal organs will be exhausted and beyond repair. Nothing on earth can save Jill now." he rose to his feet and looked at Rebecca more deeply than he had at any time before now.

"I'm sorry."

Rebecca's expression of sorrow melted away, to be replaced with a blank look of one with no other option, eyes filled with despair. She backed out of the Doctor's way and turned so they could both look at the condemned.

Chris and Jill had said and done nothing more. They continued to hold each other's gaze as intensely as they held each other's hands. They too had reached the same verdict as the Doctor and Rebecca. Chris' face was set in a combination of sadness and determination, as though he was preparing himself in case another solution manifested which he could act upon. Jill, however, was still smiling.

"Why are you smiling?" he asked eventually, voice devoid of emotion.

"It's just," Jill said faintly, her reserves of energy beginning to expire "ever since we escaped the mansion together, I'd always hoped that whenever it was my time to die, you'd be there at the last moment."

The strength drained from his face, no longer trying to suppress the emotions that Chris was used to hiding. For once he openly revealed his feelings to Jill- anguish, dashed hope, and compassion.

Chris closed the distance between them and their lips met in a bittersweet kiss.

To this day, neither of them knew how their lives might have gone in better times; how far there relationship may have stretched. But for the one last moment they had together, they loved each other more than life itself.

As they pulled apart, the Doctor appeared on Jill's other side, overshadowing the couple like an omen of death. He knelt beside her as Rebecca took her place next to Chris.

"I'm sorry." he said.

No one answered.

The Time Lord dipped the point of the syringe, recently sterilised by the sonic screwdriver, into the test tube. The container filled with the murky liquid.

The Doctor moved the needle towards Jill's arm. He paused for just a fraction of a second as he rested the needle at a point above Jill's elbow, before he pushed the tip into her flesh and injected the virus.

The room went deathly silent. No one did anything. Just waited for a reaction.

After a minute which seemed to stretch forever, Jill shifted, successfully cranking the tension up another notch.

"There's a... pain," she moaned quietly "in my chest."

"The virus reaction takes place in the blood." the Doctor explained robotically. "The heartbeat agitates the cells and speeds up the reaction. All these viruses must start at the heart."

Under other circumstances, the Doctor would have quipped about the sentence rhyming. In this case he reached out with the sonic screwdriver, aimed it's calming blue light at Jill's chest and pressed the activation button.

The machine started beeping and flashing rapidly.

"That's Jill's heartbeat." he explained. "The reaction is having it's affect on her organs already."

From then on all was quiet as the Survivors and the Doctor could nothing but watch as the life slowly drained from their friend.

Gradually her wounds healed and the sickly pallor of her skin returned to normal. The thin sheen of sweat that had covered her forehead dried and Jill grew calm instead of restless, drifting into a half asleep state. The beat of the sonic screwdriver began to slow.

It had taken less than two minutes before there was no visible sign that there had been anything wrong with Jill (aside from her torn and blood stained clothes).

The eyes of the crippled S.T.A.R.S member fluttered open.

"Doctor," her voice was so soft it could only just be heard "has it worked?"

The Doctor smiled kindly and replied "Yes."

Jill returned the smile, then her eyes closed for the last time.

The sonic screwdriver's pace continued to get slower, and slower, and finally it switched off altogether.

Silence ruled the lab.

Jill looked remarkably peaceful. It was easy to believe she was only sleeping. Everyone stared at the lifeless body as though she might wake up at any moment. But she didn't.

No one was sure how long they stayed like that, but finally the Doctor stood up and walked over to the culture device and checked that the D-virus manufacturing was going smoothly. Chris soon walked over to join him.

"How long before it's ready?" he asked coldly.

"Just a few minutes, then we'll have two pints of D-virus."

They stopped talking again. The Doctor chose to glance at Chris. The solidly built soldier was glaring at the machine in front of them with both burning hatred and unshed tears in his eyes.

"When I next see Wesker, I'm going to take care of him." he said.

"No!" the Doctor's tone was practically venomous, the Time Lord beginning to run out of patience. In response, Chris seized the Doctor by his tie and pulled him till they were face to face.

"Don't you _dare_ try to tell me that you want to show Wesker mercy!" Chris snarled. "Not after what he's done!"

"I'll take care of Wesker." the Doctor's voice was dangerously level and steady. "You're needed to take care of those who are still alive." He gave Rebecca a pointed look. She was still with Jill's body. She'd ignored the exchanged between the two men.

"Rebecca needs you." the Doctor insisted. "Claire needs you. And you need them. What can I do to help them? You've got to stop thinking about your mission for a moment. You and the Survivors need each other. If you don't acknowledge that now you're already beaten."

Chris and the Doctor continued with their silent face off for a few seconds more, but Chris was emotionally exhausted and didn't have the strength to fight the Doctor on this issue. He allowed sadness to take the place of anger as the first pair of tears dribbled out of his eyes. He let go of the Doctor and went to join Rebecca in her mourning.

The Doctor returned to waiting for the D-virus to prepare.

The Doctor was firmly and resolutely set on his next course of action. Enough people had died for this T-virus. The battle against the dark idea of bio-weapons that now lived in the depths of the base- this 'Resident Evil' as his world knew it, was going to come to an end that day, and no one else was going to die to make it happen.


	11. Chapter 11

In the lowest depths of Greenland's hidden bio-organic weapons research laboratory, four medium ranged missiles were made ready to fire. The formerly human creature who controlled them grinned with savage glee, seeing that his plan was going to work perfectly.

Just a couple of floors above him, four individuals raced down a blank corridor, armed with two pints of a chemical concoction, and ready to do whatever needed to be done.

A few floors above them, a new creature was stirring.

* * *

The Doctor, the Survivors and Steve emerged from the final stairwell, the Doctor leading the way, and Steve bringing up the rear with loping strides that meant he had to stop every two leaps to allow those in front to gain some distance before moving again so that he didn't crush them. There was no talk. The only sounds they made were the sound of running feet and the occasional high pitched shriek as Steve's claws glanced off the walls in a cascade of sparks.

They had two pints of D-virus as the Doctor promised there would be. Both Chris and Rebecca had been injected with a small amount and were now completely immune to any B.O.W infection. Steve had to avoid the substance like the plague unless he wanted his body to be completely shut down, but as usual he showed no interest in the matter, accepting the Doctor's words with disturbingly blind obedience.

They'd left Jill's body in the lab where she'd died, covering her with a sheet they procured from one of the cupboards. They hadn't disturbed her, or taken any of her equipment, not that it would have made a difference since Jill had lost so much throughout the lab. Now they'd left her behind and were en route to the base control room.

Chris and Rebecca hadn't spoken a single critical word to the Doctor since then. Apparently they had abandoned any doubts in favour of gaining revenge, and the Doctor had a nasty feeling the inevitable confrontation would be a bloody one.

With everyone's thoughts so fiercely occupied, the first missile launch came as quite a shock.

The corridor; in fact, the whole base trembled as the world was rocked by the titanic battle of gravity and jet pressure. All four of them tumbled to the floor as their sense of balance was cancelled out. Dust and frost was jarred loose from the corners between the walls and ceiling, giving the hallway an impression of a miniature blizzard.

**"Missile one successfully launched."** the female computer voice announced in it's emotionless, disjointed fashion **"Preparing missile two."**

"First missile launch. Wesker's really serious about this." the Doctor said as he climbed to his feet and looked to the roof as the rumbling faded away.

"If one of those missiles have fired that means thousands of people could be infected before we can do anything about it!" Rebecca exclaimed.

"Not necessarily." the Doctor corrected her. "It could take up to a week before the virus can actually successfully cause infection. We need to get to the control room, then I can calculate the flight pattern of the remaining missiles so that their payloads becomes effective before any that have already been launched. But obviously we have to add the D-virus to the union virus containers first."

The Doctor whipped out the by now worn and smudged map. He quickly took in the 3-D cross section and made a decision.

"This must be where the control room is," he pointed at a particular oblong "overlooking this large storage area. I'll head there and deal with Wesker; if we can infect him with the D-virus now his body will shut down and anyone infected with the union virus won't be under his control. If we can't stop worldwide infection we can at least do that. The rest of you can head to the missile launch bays. According to the computers, as long as the missiles are in a ready to launch state, we can bypass the security and put other chemicals on board. You get there and introduce the D-virus to the loading devices, then I can override the security system from the control room and pump it straight into the union virus containers. The union virus will then be killed off and its matter grown into more D-virus, then we can see about launching them."

"Brilliant plan. Just one correction I have to make." Chris chambered a round into the M16. "I'm coming with you."

"No you're not." the Doctor said firmly, eying the small arsenal that Chris was carrying.

"Yes he is and so am I." Rebecca joined in, readying her own weapon.

"You're gonna need plenty of help to fight off Wesker and whatever he's got guarding him." Chris insisted. "Either you load the D-virus onto the missiles yourself or get Steve to do it."

"Steve _can't_ do it. His mind is still corrupted by his viral infection." the Doctor explained.

Only stony silence replied.

The Doctor sighed and said "All right. Chris, come with me, but don't just lose your head and shoot everything you see; we have to be careful how we handle this. Rebecca, take the D-virus to the miss-"

"I'm not going to be left behind!" Rebecca shouted back with uncharacteristic fury. "Wesker betrayed us; he tried to kill me, in Racoon City! He killed all the others to! I'm going to be there to help!"

"Rebecca," the Doctor said soothingly "there are more important things going on than our own personal feelings. More important things than revenge."

He moved towards her and laid his hands on her shoulders.

"Remember what we talked about in the lab, about doing our part to help people. Right now the whole world is in danger. We've got to do this, not for ourselves, but so that other people won't suffer in the same way we have."

The Doctor looked Rebecca in eyes with such intensity that she had to look away when she argued "I had to go through all of this from the beginning. I've got a right to help put an end to it."

"And you _will_ help." the Doctor explained, conscious that Chris was becoming impatient and may question the Doctor's right to instruct Rebecca on what she should do. "You're able to do something I'm no good at. Remember I said you'd make a better life saver than a life ender?"

Rebecca looked at the Doctor curiously when he said this. What did he mean by saying it was something he wasn't good at?

"That's why I need your help Rebecca. To help save lives. Can you do that for me?"

Rebecca looked at the Doctor as she regarded his passionate plea, so desperate to do whatever he could to save the world from Wesker's threat, despite everything he'd endured- that they'd all endured so far. After a moment she took a deep breath, and nodded once.

"Alright, I'll do it."

"Brilliant!" the Doctor became excessively elated again and pushed his D-virus container and the map into her arms.

"Right, just follow the map to the big room with loads of vents branching off of it. Steve, go with her and make sure she gets there safely."

Steve looked down at Rebecca's tiny frame with a sullen glare, while she looked up at his hulking, alien form as though she'd just been told she was expected to marry him.

"Don't start getting cold feet now." the Doctor warned. "We've all got to work together if we're gonna see this through to the end."

He looked to Chris.

"You can come with me then. Just help me get to Wesker and remember- don't have a 'shoot first and ask questions later' attitude. I'll take the D-virus."

He took the strap that the silver canister clung to and wrapped it round his own shoulders.

"Right, let's go!"

They took off down the corridor. It was only about a minute or two before they came to a passage on the left wall that led to the missile bay. With a quick exchange of "Be careful." and "You too." between Chris and Rebecca respectively, the young medic and her monstrous escort disappeared round the corner as the soldier and the Time Lord continued onwards.

"Your good at inspiring people, I'll say that." Chris remarked.

"Thank you!" the Doctor grinned. "You're not so bad yourself."

They came to a steel bulkhead door.

"Well, looks like this is it." Chris said solemnly.

"I know." the Doctor twisted the power assisted lock open and swung the door inwards. "Exciting isn't it?"

They stepped over the threshold and observed the surroundings. The walls, floor and presumably the roof that was lost in the gloom was made of metal, and they didn't need to be told that it was thick. The whole place was shrouded in darkness, the only light apart from that which spilled through the open doorway being a pair of dim spotlights on the walls whose reach barely covered the area they stood in. Despite the darkness, they could just make out a hazy fog drifting before them, seemingly with a delicate sheen due to the unknown substances that must have combined in the air. The smell of decay and old blood fought for dominance with the smell of machine oil and unidentifiable chemicals. The room was cold, but the heavy miasma gave it a stuffy, clammy feel at the same time.

Against the wall and to the right of the two intruders was a wide elevator door. About ten feet in front of them, two mighty columns stretched to the distant ceiling. The feat of engineering and architecture that must have been used to erect the pillars caused the Doctor to whistle appreciatively, making the sound echo alarmingly loudly around them. Chris shot a look at the Doctor, while the Doctor himself shrugged sheepishly.

"Sorry," he whispered "but you've got to be impressed. Just one of those pillars must be made up of over a thousand tons of metal. The whole thing- no, this whole room must be pivotal in keeping this base from collapsing in on itself. It must reach up all the way to the foundation level where we met."

'_And where the TARDIS is_.' the thought suddenly struck the Doctor. He looked at his watch. They'd been there for nearly an hour. The TARDIS would be charged up and ready to move by now, but another thirty minutes and the poor thing would be choked by the alternate reality and die once and for all. He was running out of time to get himself and Donna back home. But now he also had a good idea, which he filed away in his brain for later.

"And why am I whispering?" the Doctor announced brightly and loudly to Chris. "What have we got to worry about, eh? Come on Chris; looks like Dr Albert Wesker is such a 'fraidy cat he won't even face us."

"What the hell are you doing!" Chris hissed as the Doctor strode forward without a care in the world.

Chris paused for a moment, agape at the Doctor's behaviour at such an inappropriate time, and then quickly sprinted after him. By the time he'd caught up with the bizarre man they'd passed the tower like structures and could clearly see what lay beyond.

"Ah, my guests have arrived." Wesker's voice echoed, not from a speaker, but from the window up in the wall on the opposite side of the chamber.

* * *

Donna's head was swimming with sickness. A dull throb persecuted her mercilessly and her stomach had been so bad at times she'd doubled up in pain. Fortunately, whatever sickness she had had started to calm, and she was able to pull herself together when Wesker called out "Ah, my guests have arrived."

She leaned over as far as her bonds allowed and saw two figures standing at the opposite end of the maze. The first one she recognised as the burley shape of Chris Redfield. The second one was undoubtedly-

"DOCTOR!" she yelled at the top of her voice.

"DONNA!" he yelled back, voice only partially muffled by the glass; most likely there were some vent or something that allowed sound to get through but Donna didn't really care about that right now.

"Doctor, get me out of here!" she demanded.

"Don't worry; I'll be there in a moment!" the Doctor called out.

"Give up Wesker!" Chris took his turn to shout and aimed his weapon in Wesker's general direction. "You can't win!"

"Can't I Chris?" Wesker jeered. "I've already launched the first batch of union virus and the rest will soon follow."

"Oh yeah! Well Rebecca's taking care of that right now!"

"He's right Albert!" the Doctor added. "Your entire virus stock is going to be sabotaged with a virus of my own!"

"Ha!" Donna chanted gleefully. "That's got you, eh? Ruined your sick virus."

"Not to worry. I have a backup plan." Wesker said slyly to Donna, before returning attention to the two men and shouting "Well whatever you've done, nothing can be introduced to the virus containers themselves without an authorisation code from me!"

"Well obviously I know that!" the Doctor called out with a sarcastic laugh. "That's why I was hoping to convince you to see things from my point of view."

"We'll see about that." Wesker muttered as he pressed several buttons on his console. There was an acknowledging 'beep', and the orange capsule on the pillar burst open and revealed its contents.

Donna gasped.

* * *

Wesker had fallen silent, but a sharp hiss was accompanied by a trio of clangs as the orange pod that slightly blocked their view of the window flew apart in three pieces, displaying a bulky and unrecognisable shape that had been trapped within. Before they could speculate on it's identity, another clang came from behind them, but this time it was more like the clang of the elevator door flying open. As they turned to look back the way they'd come, they were greeted by the sight of a restless crowd that materialised out of the darkness.

They looked like zombies at a glance, but upon closer inspection they were subtlety different. They didn't sway drunkenly like zombies, but held themselves rigidly and hunched. Their heads were truly a sight for sore eyes, for they were dripping with blood and gore and their faces were twisted with looks of savagery. Claws capable of rending flesh and bone jutted from their fingertips.

"Crimson heads!" Chris cried out in disgust and fear.

"A V-A.C.T reaction." the Doctor summarised passively. "Injury causing an increased and unsuccessful reaction to try and convert them into Tyrants in response to the threat."

Chris grabbed the Doctor by the shoulder and dragged him towards the entrance to the maze. The crimson heads gave chase.

As the ran into the first makeshift corridor of the maze, a light on the opposite wall snapped on and cast a spotlight onto the pillar in front of the window to Wesker's control room. On top of the pillar was a silhouette of a huge body. It reminded the Doctor of Steve's mutated body, except this one wasn't hunched and seemed more humanoid. Plus it appeared to be wearing a long overcoat.

As they watched, the thing raised a long tube to it's shoulder an pointed it at them.

"It's a Nemesis!" Chris began to say, but was cut off at the last moment as a geyser of smoke spouted from behind the creature and a bazooka shell erupted from the front of the tube.

The Doctor threw himself to the right, while Chris threw himself to the left. The shell impacted on the floor just round the corners from where the two men had dived. The explosion zoomed through the passage they just been standing in, spreading fire in droves and by the sound of the roaring, smashing into one of the crimson heads.

Chris and the Doctor jumped to their feet and glanced back at each other across the sea of fire. A shuffling announced the arrival of more crimson heads.

"Meet you on the other side!" Chris shouted, before he turned and ran through the ominous passageways.

The Doctor followed suit without bothering to respond. He ran and dodged around corners as the crimson heads braved the fire and pursued.

* * *

"Let's see that sonic remote get you out of this one, Doctor." Wesker gave a wolfish grin as he watched the unfolding chase.

"It's called a sonic screwdriver, dimwit!" Donna growled.

"Well when this is over there'll be plenty of time discover the secrets of that thing. Now, how about a bet on who survives the race?"

"I say it'll be a draw." Donna spoke defiantly as she pulled at her restraints.

"More like a dead heat." Wesker sneered.

* * *

The Doctor dived round another corner as the crimson head behind slashed at his back, only to miss and gouge a smattering of rubble out of the wall. The Doctor continued forward, but then stopped as he came to a point in the maze where the passage widened into an area five metres across before becoming narrow again. The Doctor was right to be cautious, as a moment later a steel beam, propelled by an arrangement of attached saw-tooth gears, burst through the wall and took a savage swipe at nothing. It continued to swing dangerously in the Doctor's path as he turned to face the blood ridden zombie.

The thing had no bite or scratch marks on it's torso, so it must have been zombified with contaminated water, but it had a trio of wide bullet holes on it's chest. No doubt that was what brought on it's mutation into a crimson head.

With barely a second's hesitation, the Doctor whipped out a can of first aid spray and doused the wounds in the healing liquid as they came into range, intending to stop the beast in it's tracks. It stopped, but things didn't go the way the Doctor expected. The crimson head staggered back as though stunned. Then it let out a roar and thrashed about in pain, bodily fluids erupting from random parts of it's anatomy. As the Doctor watched in revolted fascination, another crimson head tried to dash round the first, but was thrown back as the frantic monster seemed to swell in size and strength, till it was shaped more like a gorilla than a human.

"How did that happen?" the Doctor was completely bewildered. He looked down at the first aid spray he was holding, then let out an "Oh!" of understanding.

"This is the one I made hyperactive; makes dormant cells active and causes accelerated growth and mutation." he looked at the crimson head, whose claws had grown longer than ever and whose teeth were now pointing directly out of it's mouth and at the Doctor.

"Sorry. Really, I am; it's so hard to keep track of everything."

The huge crimson head bellowed in response. The Doctor turned, calculated in a matter of nanoseconds, and jumped past the swinging bar, his long coat nearly catching in the cogs.

"Wesker really has a sick mind." the Doctor commented.

Behind him, the crimson head who had been knocked down returned to the chase and jumped at the Doctor, heedless of the risk, and jammed in the gears of the waving bar with a sickening crunch and a cry of pain (or as close to a cry of pain as a zombie can get).

With the now lifeless body caught in the cogs, the obstacle slowed down enough for the enhanced crimson head the Doctor had inadvertently created to pass without incident and continue pursuing the Doctor. The Doctor ran frantically from the being as the sound of gunfire and the explosion of another bazooka shell echoed from the other side of the maze.

* * *

"Damn the no guns policy!" Chris declared out loud as the blast blocked his path and forced him to double back to the last T-junction, straight towards the waiting arms of the crimson head who had just caught up with him. The M16 spoke the man's greeting with a hail of bullets. Slightly unbalanced by suddenly turning the corner, the mutated zombie was knocked back and slammed into the wall by the fusillade of fire. Chris reached the fallen body and looked to his left, the way he'd just come. His was confronted by the hunched figures of at least three more approaching crimson heads.

Pausing only to cast a quick glance at the passage to the right, Chris turned and dashed backwards down said passage, firing as he went. Fully automatic fire streamed down the open top corridor at random, but in such cramped conditions missing was almost impossible. Small geysers of blood and flecks of skin leapt from the leaders body, causing it to slow down, but the crimson head behind merely pushed past it's fellow and came on as fast as ever.

As the assault rifle ran dry, Chris turned about and darted round another corner to his right as the way ahead was a dead end. He stopped for a moment and spent precious seconds reloading his gun with tell-tale trembling hands. As the first round was loaded into the chamber, the crimson head came round the corner with it's mouth open wide in a furious scream and it's claws seeking a vulnerable target. Chris thrust the M16 forward in his left hand and pulled the trigger. Normally, an automatic weapon fired one handed would be ridiculously inaccurate. In this case, however, the tip of the barrel was held in place by being jammed in the creature mouth, the jaw containing the reports of the gun in a miniature light show. The monsters head rattled as the back of it blew out in a spray of maroon. The next crimson head came charging round the corner, but with his free hand, Chris had grabbed his magnum. The huge bullet hit it just above the right eyeball, and the crimson head fell back with a piece of it's frontal lobe missing.

Yet a third crimson head entered the passageway. Chris knocked it back with a long burst of machine gun fire, then abandoned the M16, finding it too cumbersome to take any further through the maze; it was nearly out of ammo anyway.

With the colt python in one hand, Chris drew his beretta pistol with the other hand and ran as fast as he could, dodging and weaving his way through the maze as sound indicated there were still more crimson heads after him. He had no idea if he was going the right way, but he was getting closer to the end of the chamber where the control room overlooked all. As he went, he noticed that there were barely any turnoffs to the stretch of corridor he was in, the first one he seen for a while passing on his left. He took this as a good sign that he was getting to the end of the maze.

But then disaster struck.

He turned another corner, and found himself faced with a dead end. It was so unexpected that Chris nearly ran smack into the wall. He stared dumbly at the offending barrier for a moment, then ran back down the corridor to the turning he'd seen. But as he came to it he saw a crimson head coming down from the opposite end of the passage, and even as he watched, traps activated and flung out of the walls. Steel cables which had been concealed in smooth and deep grooves in the wall whipped out and effectively dismembered the violent creature. There was no way Chris could work his way down there any time soon.

Chris looked back the way he'd come as the sound of approaching hostiles caught his attention. He was now trapped at the end of the passage against an indeterminable number of enemies, and as he braced himself for the impending fight, the Nemesis fired off another shell.

* * *

The projectile was clearly intended for the Doctor, yet it impacted in a passageway some way ahead and to the right of where the Doctor actually was. Maybe it was a bad shot, or Wesker was toying with them; the Time Lord briefly considered the possibilities, but right now was not the time for debating such things. He was still being followed by the crimson head who resembled a red version of the incredible hulk, along with several others at it's heels. He had tried to open the canister holding the D-virus, but at the angle he held it at it was virtually impossible to break the seal without stopping to handle it.

As the Doctor found himself in a passageway that went on for some metres, he noticed a trip wire covering the distance between the two walls. Without slowing at all, the Doctor jumped over the wire and went on running. The monsters behind blundered straight into the wire, and the sound of concealed mines exploding reached the Doctor's ears, followed by the satisfying sounds of crimson heads tripping over each other in the confusion.

"That should give me a bit of a lead." the Doctor said to himself "But this Albert Wesker really has some issues. What's with all the traps in here?"

All of a sudden, the Doctor had a brilliant idea.

'_Traps_.' he thought to himself as he began to scan the corridors ahead that branched off the one he stood in.

* * *

Chris fired again, and brought down another crimson head, but by the sound of it there were a dozen more to take it's place. The shot he'd just fired was the last in the magnum. He had twelve more bullets but none were readily available. He was forced to resort to the pistol.

He darted back round the corner to the dead end, firing randomly as a gurgling growl signalled the arrival of another horror. He quickly searched the walls for any possible button, switch, or even a foothold, that might provide some form of escape. He tried to brace his back against the wall and reach the opposite one with his legs to try and climb them, but the metal panels were just too far apart for that.

As the arrival of the next crimson became imminent, Chris looked at the top edge of the dead end wall and quickly made a decision.

'_Only one chance_.' he thought as the crimson head appeared. It charged at him, arms outstretched, yelling wildly. Chris fired as accurately as he could, landing shots in the monster's knees and ankles. The creature tripped within arms reach of Chris, and the ex-S.T.A.R.S member lashed out and pistol-whipped the thing across the jaw. The crimson head fell past the dodging man and stuck the wall head first with a sickening crump.

Another crimson head entered the cramped space, but Chris didn't stop to fight. He bounded onto the back of the fallen zombie, then jumped up and just managed to grab the edge of the wall with his hands. He heaved his body up while his legs scrabbled as they searched for purchase in the smooth metal. He hauled himself up as fast as he could. One of the crimson heads below jumped after him and took a slice out of his leg. Chris redouble his efforts desperately, and next thing he knew he'd fallen over the side of the wall.

He stood up again, smiling at the sound of the crimson heads franticly trying and failing to follow. Chris checked his surroundings. He was still in the maze, but his path had taken him nearly all the way to the other side. The control room window was far to his right, but the wall of the room it was built into was only a little way ahead. Of course, the drawback of such proximity was that the Nemesis had an even clearer shot of Chris.

Another round soared towards Chris, who hurled himself forward onto the ground, just as the explosion came and the shock wave washed over him. There was a collective wail from the crimson heads. Chris didn't see if the shot had smashed a way through the wall to them, but he didn't wait to find out. He was already back on his feet and running.

* * *

The Doctor went on running, but every time he came to a side passage he quickly darted into it to check for any more traps. He knew he wouldn't be going anywhere if these monsters kept following him, so he'd decided he had to stop them now. Easier said than done when they were barely a few seconds behind. Fortunately his chance came sooner than expected. He finally found what he needed; a turnoff that led to a passageway that ran parallel to the one he'd just travelled down, with only the thin metal walls separating them and one of the swinging arm traps in the new passageway. It seemed perfect, until another crimson head came from the end of the corridor the Doctor had been heading to.

The way the Doctor had come was filling with the creatures, including the giant one; the path the Doctor had been taking was blocked by the crimson head rushing towards him, and the side passage he'd found led away from the end of the maze, and he really didn't have time to go back.

Fervently praying that everything would go the way he planned it to, the Doctor pulled out the can of enhanced first aid spray and faced the lone crimson head that blocked his path. The thing, too ferocious to be considered human, too terrible to be called an animal, continued to charge at the Doctor who stood stock still.

As it got terrifyingly close, the crimson head leapt into the air and came down on the Time Lord like a bird of prey. The Doctor only moved at the last moment, sidestepping casually into the other passage and spraying first aid spray onto the monsters head as it went past.

The crimson head roared as the liquid entered through the damaged flesh of it's head and began it's mutation. Momentum pushed the monster down the corridor towards the approaching crowd of crimson heads who'd been following the Doctor the whole time. As the Doctor cautiously approaching the semi-concealed trap in the corridor, more insane howling announced that the previous mutated crimson head, and the recently mutating crimson head had just come into contact with each other. The Doctor hoped that their mutation would be strong enough to drive them into madness and attack each other, or else nothing would stop his numerous enemies from pouring after him.

When he was as close to the chainsaw equipped hydraulic arm as he dared, the Doctor deployed his sonic screwdriver and sent carefully directed sonic wavelengths at the arm. It trembled slightly, threatening to activate prematurely, but it held its position.

Job done, the Doctor returned to the corridor he'd been in and surveyed the scene. As he'd planned (and hoped) the two transformed crimson heads had held a crazed skirmish in the middle of the passage, preventing any of the others from passing, though it was obvious from the mess and crippled bodies that they'd still tried. Now, one of the enhanced monsters had emerged triumphant and was returning it's attention to the Doctor. It stalked forward, an angry and deadly force, not to be reckoned with lightly. The Doctor faced it without fear. In fact, he faced it casually with a small smile on his face, even as it closed the gap between them while normal crimson heads struggling to squeeze round it's bulk.

"Well, it's been a fun," the Doctor said as he gave the beast a jaunty two fingered salute "but I really don't have enough time for this."

Just as it looked as though the monster was close enough to strike, the Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver down the side passage and turned it on.

The swinging arm trap exploded out if the wall with three times it usual force, springs and levers that designated its maximum reach snapping and falling loose. With no restraint, the arm struck the base of the wall opposite with the force of a runaway volkswagen. The whole section of the wall toppled over, straight onto the horde of crimson heads. The big one was knocked down and lodged firmly against the other wall, with the fallen metal structure jamming it's head in place. The other crimson heads with similarly caught in the crush, and though a few of them managed to find gaps in the rubble to reach though and grope about blindly, they weren't going anywhere.

"Yeah, go Doctor!" Donna's encouragement made its way from where she was watching the events. The Doctor smiled at the praise, before leaving the scene of destruction and heading to the end of the corridor.

He emerged quite unexpectedly from the end of the maze, barely a few seconds before Chris arrived through another exit just a few feet from him.

"Chris!" the Doctor announced joyfully as though he were meeting an old friend at a dinner party.

Chris nodded a greeting to the Doctor, then looked towards the control room window.

His mouth fell open.

The Doctor looked too, and saw that they were now out in the open and completely exposed to the bazooka wielding Nemesis, who was the distance of half a tennis court away from them.

"Hit the deck!" Chris yelled, just as another bazooka shot winged its way towards the two men. The shell hit the wall between them, and both were tossed aside by the blast.

The Doctor opened his eyes. His vision was blurred, his ears were muted and tremors of shock were grating at every nerve in his body.

_'Good._' he thought vaguely to himself. '_I didn't fall unconscious_.'

Aware that if he was still feeling the effects of the detonation then it could only have happened a mere moment ago, the Doctor managed to raise himself onto his knees and try to access the situation.

His eyesight reasserted itself, but his ears were still ringing. Ahead, he saw the window to the control room. He saw a blond, one eyed man in a black suit, presumably Wesker, baring his teeth in a smile as he watched the Doctor's predicament. To the left he saw what looked like a giant aquarium with a huge plant stuffed inside. To the right he could just make out Donna, who as ever appeared to be yelling her head off about something.

As the Doctor's head began to clear, he realised there was a vertical black streak obscuring his view of the window. He narrowed his eyes as he tried to correct his focus. Then he froze as his sight and memory combined to confirm what it was.

The Nemesis tipped the bazooka back, and with some device that had been vilely integrated into it's flesh, loaded another shell. As it brought the bazooka to aim at the Doctor's stricken form, he realised the game was up. Not even a Time Lord could survive being blown apart at the seams. He faced his killer with blank acceptance as the vast, skinless jaw of the bio-weapon's stapled head mouthed something that the Doctor's still numb ears couldn't take in, before pulling the trigger.

There was a blinding flash of blue light. A ball of what looked like pure energy, the size of person and coloured like a clear sky, came out of nowhere, travelling from the right side of the Doctor's vision and impacting on the Nemesis. It's body seemed to swell for a moment, before a mighty explosion vaporised it from existence, expanding enough to consume the bazooka shell launched a split second ago, swallowing up its pathetically inferior detonation. A dull thump substituted the sound of the blast in the Doctor's ears.

Looking away from the light, the Doctor shook his head vigorously to try and clear it. When he looked back, the pillar used by the Nemesis was a quarter of its original size. There was no sign the Nemesis had ever been there.

The Doctor searched for the source of the blast that had saved his life. At another exit to the maze to the far right, a figure stood their ground with what looked like a giant rocket launcher.

"You shouldn't leave linear launchers just lying around, Wesker." Claire Redfield called out as she loaded another shell into the huge weapon. "Someone could get hurt." she hefted it onto her shoulder as Wesker jumped to his feet with a look of horror on his face. "Someone like you."

Claire fired.

The miniature fusion shot disappeared into the short gap in the wall that led to the sealed control room door. The resulting explosion bloomed out of the entrance way like a small sun, sheering the stairway to pieces, sending ripples of energy through the air and engulfing the control room in debris and smoke.

Chris came to the Doctor's side and helped him to his feet.

"You alright?" he asked.

"Sure, no problem. No worse than getting caught in the blast of a panzerschreck." he replied.

Then Claire came shooting over, dropping the heavy weapon and the accompanying shell rack. She flung herself at Chris, who caught her in a relived embrace.

"Chris, I thought you might be dead!" she blurted out instantly.

"You too. I'm so glad you're all right." Chris replied, elation of being reunited with his sister replacing the hard as nails soldier personality.

"Look, this is great and everything but can't we talk about it later?" the Doctor interrupted the happy moment with practicalities.

The siblings pulled apart.

"Yes, you're right. Donna's still up there. We've got to get her out." Claire explained quickly.

"Alright, both of you stay back for a moment- I'll handle this." the Doctor spoke with a note of authority. He took a step forward, then turned to Chris.

"By the way, I'll need to borrow this."

With that, the Doctor took Chris' pistol and went at a jog towards the blown open control room entrance.

Chris was so taken aback that he didn't respond for a moment. The Doctor carrying a gun? The blast must have messed him up more than they'd thought.

However, as Chris looked at the Doctor clambering up the rubble, he noticed there was defiantly something wrong about the way the Doctor was holding the gun.

* * *

As the vent system responded to the situation, the smoke gradually began to clear. Wesker climbed to his feet, coughing thickly as he braced himself against his desk, slamming a fist down on one of the keyboards to deactivate the warning klaxon. He looked over to the previously locked door.

What was actually left of the door was a scattering of molten blobs that were setting into shapeless forms on the ceiling and floor. By luck, the heavy armor that surrounded his control room had directed most of the explosion away from room and its occupants. The short alcove on the other side of the door had been blasted to over twice its original, cramped size. Instead of a tiny, square, steel passageway, it was now a wide, circular stone cave, carpeted with dust and rubble. Fetid, humid air stung the former human's nostrils.

Wesker looked though the viewing screen, which had been cracked and splintered by the explosion. In front of him, the Redfields were gathering up the linear launcher and its ammunition which had been casually disregarded during their reunion. To the left, Wesker could see the Doctor scrambling up the slope where the metal steps had once been, and he was holding a gun.

Wesker jumped to his feet at once, staggering with dizziness. His strength and speed had been enhanced by the unique virus he'd used on himself so long ago, but he was still susceptible to pain and death. He steadied himself quickly and crossed his arms over his chest to grab the pistols holstered under his arms. He drew a pair of 50. calibre action express desert eagle magnums from within his suit jacket. To an ordinary man, a single desert eagle was daunting enough to try and control. But to Wesker, who was something more than man, it wasn't such a big deal. He brought the pistols to bare, pulling back both hammers as he did. As the Doctor's form appeared in the doorway, Wesker dropped to one knee and took aim.

"Stop! I surrender!" the Doctor shouted out.

Wesker froze, uncertain what he'd just heard.

The Doctor was holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender, his right hand holding his sonic screwdriver, the left holding a 9mm pistol, _by the barrel_!

* * *

The Doctor watched carefully as the infamous doctor Albert Wesker rose to his feet. This was the first clear look the Doctor had got of the man. Apart from the disfiguring wound where the left eye socket used to be, Wesker looked surprisingly normal. If they'd have passed each other on the street, the Doctor would have thought the man was nothing more than a casually fashionable business man with a particularly stern face. But the Doctor could see in Wesker's remaining eye the man's true nature, the bestial glare revealing what truly lay in this creature's heart and mind. The Doctor had little hope that he'd be able to reason with the crazed scientist, but he knew he had to try.

"You surrender?" Wesker asked in disbelief, while the giant plant squirmed in it's confinement behind him.

"Yeah, that's right." the Doctor beamed. "You know; give up, give in, give over, etcetera. I would have brought a little white flag but I don't seem to have one handy. Don't suppose you have one I could borrow? Just a bit of paper on a stick would do."

"D-Doctor." Donna spluttered from where she'd been knocked down and covered by a blanket of dust when the explosion had occurred. "What'ja think you're doing space boy? Get me out of this!" she wrung he bound hands in front of her

Wesker aimed one of his magnums at Donna's head. The Doctor almost dived in front of her by instinct, but knew the best chance of both of them surviving this was not to do anything that might provoke Wesker to attack, like making any sudden movements. The best option was to treat Wesker like a wild animal, which to an extent, he was.

"You try anything, and she dies." he threatened, his voice leaving no doubt that he meant it.

"I'm not going to try anything Albert." the Doctor spoke carefully and evenly. "I just want to talk."

"Talk?" Wesker spat the word as though he were referring to something that was insultingly beneath him. "About what?"

"About coming to a conclusion where no one else has to die because of your virus research."

Wesker sneered.

"A humanitarian. I've heard enough of that sort of garbage to last a lifetime."

"Well then, maybe it's about time you actually started paying attention to it." the Doctor implored. "Can't you see your 'research' is a disaster?"

"A disaster? How can you say that?" Wesker demanded. "_I_ am living proof of the value of the mother virus. I was impaled on a Tyrant's claw and left for dead, yet not only am I alive but I've also been physically enhanced beyond imagination."

"You're nothing but a freak, Al." Donna cut in. "You're not even human anymore; you're a monster."

Wesker was unmoved. He said "Humanity is overrated. It's only thanks to the virus that I'm still here. Without it, I would have died."

"There are worse things than dying Wesker." the Doctor said solemnly.

"Like what, Doctor?"

"Surviving."

There was a pause as the single word sank in. Wesker and the Doctor watched each other carefully, the former with suspicion and uncertainty, the latter with a stern glare. The room seemed to chill with apprehension, and the Doctor chose that moment to speak again.

"Extending your life, conquering death; that is a great thing." the Doctor conceded. "But being the only one to survive when no one else does; that's no good either. To struggle against death is only natural, it's so perfectly human. That's why you're doing this Albert. Deep down you're still human, with a human fear of death, and the chance to escape that fear is driving you on. But when you live so long and survive for so long, you come to realise that that's not the way the world should work. People are meant to die, not live forever with the help of a virus. The world constantly changes, and those who survive when it changes get left behind. You lose your place, and you've nowhere to go. You find yourself stuck in a never ending circle, unable to face death, but unable to embrace life. You become a shadow on the outside, trying to fit in even though you know you never can, just moving on whenever it gets too difficult for you to face it all. And now you're looking to bring that pain and suffering to all the people of the world."

"_No_, Doctor!" Wesker snarled. "The union virus will advance the world. All life will share in its power. With it, all living things can be interlinked, like one vast creature, no danger of being left out or whatever the heck you're talking about. All intelligence will be combined by me. With all living beings bound together, it'll be a revolution like no other."

"And what about individuality? If everyone thinks the same way, where are all the original ideas going to come from? If you're all the same you won't advance at all. Every person's life has significance, but only because they stand out as an individual. A single being made up of every living creature in the world will only have the significance of one person, with no one to share it with. Did you think about that?"

"Do you really believe that people are more successful when they're divided?"

"And do you think any person would want to lose their sense of self so that they can become a small part of a single body? The union virus will turn humanity into a race of mindless drones. To create this single, hive mind creature, you have to remove everything that makes a human what they are. Most people would prefer to be killed rather than be a part of your 'revolution'."

"Well, you know what they say," Wesker's angry snarl became an icy cold smile "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

The Doctor regarded Wesker for moment, then replied with a smile that was friendly and cheerful, but didn't seem to reach the Time Lord's eyes.

"You really have no idea who I am, do you?" the Doctor asked.

The Doctor's grip tightened on the sonic screwdriver. His thumb moved toward the button that would activate it.

"Well," Wesker said in a thoughtful voice "I had been wondering about that for some time. The only clue I've had so far is that your friend calls you 'space boy'."

"Well yes, I suppose that's pretty accurate." the Doctor said brightly. "I fly around the place, investigate the great unknown, bit of this, bit of that, and so on. How about a tradition space man joke to prove it?"

The Doctor lowered his hands and clapped them together in front of himself, as though in glee. Wesker's frown renewed itself.

"What are you, Doctor?" Wesker demanded.

"Oh I'm many things." the Doctor risked pushing Wesker's temper over the edge by acting cheerfully again. "I'm a scientist, a traveller, an explorer, a composer; I was even a solider for a short time, but I'm a constant trouble maker. I'm a _little_ bit full of myself, I can't stand arguments, and I don't-like-guns!"

And with that, the Doctor flicked his hands with a sudden deftness, sending the pistol he'd been holding flying though the air, humming slightly as the vibrations charged into it by the sonic screwdriver threatened to shake it to pieces. Wesker fell to his right as he dodged the projectile, but the mutant wasn't the target.

The glass fronted case shattered along with the pistol as the gun made contact with the surface and the compressed sonic quakes bounced between them. Before Wesker could turn to see what was happening, 'Plant 47' bellowed in triumph and fired multiple green tentacles which swiftly clamped themselves onto the rear half of Wesker's body. Despite all he'd endured in the past, even the cold hearted Wesker was unable to suppress the scream of terror that ripped from his throat as he zoomed backwards into the monstrous, blood-sucking, organic mass. The emergency glass panels slammed down less than a second later barely avoiding Wesker's legs, but severing the plant limbs that were snaking their way towards the Doctor and Donna.

"Sorry to break the news to you Albert," the Doctor said to the case of thrashing limbs "but it looks like your last remaining employee has just gone on strike."

"DOCTOR!"

The Doctor responded immediately to Donna's yell by bounding over to her and attacking the restraining strap with the sonic screwdriver. In just a moment she was free.

The red haired Londoner threw her arms round the Doctor's neck with gleeful laugh. He embraced joyfully with a laugh of his own. Then Donna pulled back...

SMACK!

... and the Doctor fell over backwards as Donna slapped him.

"Where the heck have you been! I've been trapped in here that maniac for ages!"

The Doctor moved his jaw from side to side, testing its durability, then sprang back to his feet, saying "That was a tough blow. You been working out?"

"What's happened in here?" Chris asked he entered and took in the sight; the Doctor with an angry red cheek, Donna glaring at him with something close to rage and Albert Wesker, struggling for his life inside a glass case with a titanic plant monster.

"Nothing out of the ordinary, Chris." the Doctor gave a broad smile to him and Claire. "Albert Wesker's been removed, the control room is under our control, and I've finally got my assistant back."

"Oi!" barked Donna. "I'm no 'assistant' to you, mate!"

"Sorry, I meant companion. I'm still not used to this political correctness thing."

A loud roar drew everyone's attention to the wide glass screen. On the opposite side of the humongous chamber, between the great pillars, they could just make out the sight of a hunched and muscular form that was slowly and steadily making it's way towards the maze, smashing apart crowds of crimson heads as it went.

"Chris, help me load another shot." Claire said as she unslung the linear shell rack from her shoulders.

"Don't worry." the Doctor assured her. "That's just Steve."

There was a dull clang as Claire dropped the shell rack.

"Steve!" she gasped in shock.

"Yep, a new member of the team. A little on the green side but you'll like him once you get to know him."

It was just at that point that the Doctor remembered Donna saying that Steve used to be a friend of Claire's, and suddenly realised his behaviour was probably not the most appropriate for the current circumstances. He carefully looked about the room to check.

Claire was staring open mouthed at the approaching figure of Steve as he began flattening maze walls along with rival B.O.W's. Donna and Chris were both looking at the Doctor with expressions that cursed the day he was born.

Yep, very inappropriate.

The Doctor felt himself deflate as he looked apologetically at them.

Then, with a final roar, Steve toppled the final wall of the artificial maze and pounded his way towards the entrance to the control room. Rebecca came scrambling over debris behind him.

"Doctor," Donna swallowed her anger for a moment "what exactly has happened to... him?"

"Well, originally the viral infection in him had made him lose his mind, and Albert kept him under control with an inhibitor. But the inhibitor has been removed and I restored his mind as best I could."

"But, what about him being a monster. Can't you do anything about that?"

The Doctor looked at Donna grimly, and said "I really don't know Donna. I can try, but first I've got to deal with the union virus."

Just then, Steve lumbered into the room. Rebecca, who was bringing up the rear still, fell in after him. The Doctor was at her side in an instant.

"Ouch; looks like those crimson heads gave you a hard time." He commented as he help to unwrap the small medical pack she had to deal with the gashes on her arms and across her chest. "Don't worry though; nothing life threatening. Did you manage to put the D-virus in the missiles?"

"Yeah, it's all ready." Rebecca hissed through the stinging pain as her new viral antibodies devoured the T-virus infection she'd received. "Computers said you just need to authorise the launch and it's done."

"Great work! Chris, help 'Becky. I've got a job to do."

The Doctor rushed over to the computer console as Chris moved to help treat Rebecca's wounds.

* * *

The monstrous form of Steve Burnside turned to face Claire. They stared at each other for a moment, Claire shocked beyond words, Steve as ever revealing nothing of his own feeling, if he had any.

Then Steve strode forward, only needing two steps before he was right in front of the young girl. Donna was quickly at her side.

"Just slow down, big fella." she said uncertainly, unsure how best to deal with the situation. Despite all the Doctor had said, it was clear that Steve wasn't in a reasonable state of mind. Not only that, but she had no idea how Claire was going to react.

For a moment, all three of them stayed like that as they regarded each other. Then Claire, slowly and carefully, reached out with one hand. As her palm drew near she tensed up and froze. Donna sensed it immediately and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, but still couldn't decide what to do or say. Steve's face remained blank.

Then Claire moved her hand forward and touched the side of Steve's face, as though testing he was real.

"Steve?" she asked in a tone that sounded almost bewildered.

Deep in Steve's mind, where his thoughts lay like thick sediment, a single spark of memory came to life. He remembered, from long ago- a warm hand against his cold skin, a kind voice in his ears. He felt a shadow of emotion which had long since been stripped away from him.

Finally, Steve's mask of indifference broke. His eyes closed and his faced creased as though he were in pain. He gingerly reached up and clumsily pushed his hand against the one on his face.

"_Claaaaaire_..." he rumbled deeply.

"Steve," Claire spoke in a state of ambivalence; joy that Steve had truly returned to her, despair as what had become of him in her absence "what's happened to you."

No answer from Steve.

Donna searched her mind for something to say, but failed miserably.

"Donna!"

She jumped at the sound of her own name being called.

The Doctor turned from the computers and said "Donna, this is an emergency, I need your help."

Donna gave an indecisive "Er..." before looking back to Claire.

"Will you be alright?" she asked.

"Yeah, find; go on." Claire said vaguely.

"Yes, come on Donna!"

"Alright!" Donna replied fiercely to the Doctor as she joined him at the bank of computers. "No need to get your knickers in a twist; or whatever Time Lord's have instead of-"

"Donna, now is not the time for jokes about extraterrestrial underwear."

"Well that's rich coming from you! What about that time with the Martians and your Uranus joke!"

"Hey," the Doctor shrugged "I was tense. Known fact that humour helps ease tension. Besides, I didn't come up with it. Humans of the twenty-second century are very easily amused."

"Er, Doctor? I don't think it's a good idea to announce to everyone that you travel through time, do you?"

The Doctor looked back into the room, but everyone else seemed too preoccupied to take notice of their bickering.

"Well," he faced Donna again "you're the one who just out loud called me a Time Lor-"

"Look, never mind arguing, space boy! I wanna know exactly what's going on!"

The Doctor sighed and shook his head.

"Alright. Basically, we discovered that the T-virus is infecting people out of a natural reaction to try and prevent itself from being wiped out entirely. I've made a new virus- the D-virus- which has better survival characteristics and no damaging effects on living creatures. If we can infect people with the D-virus before they become infected with any other virus, the D-virus will settle in them and give them immunity to the T-virus and the mother virus."

"But what about people who are infected? Can it change them back?"

"I'm sorry Donna," the Doctor looked at her with a guilty expression. "I had to be sure the union virus wouldn't be allowed to spread. The D-virus is so concentrated that anyone already infected will die."

Donna blanched.

"_Everyone_!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, everyone."

"And Steve and Albert?"

"If they contract it the D-virus will sort of, nullify the virus they already have. If that happens their bodies will shut down and they'll die."

"Okay. So what are you going to do with this D-virus?"

"Use the missiles that Albert was going to use to spread the union virus. The first one's already been fired but the rest are full of D-virus. They've been prepared for firing so I can bypass their security programs. We just need to take control of the systems and then we can spread the D-virus across the world, hopefully before that first missile has a chance to do any damage. That means I'm going to be hard pushed to program a successful flight path to make this work."

Donna closed her eyes and held up her hand.

"Sorry, could I just make sure I've got this right? The union virus will take over the whole world, your plan is to stop it by infecting everyone in the world with another virus that will kill people already infected if they catch it... and you call it a D-virus?"

"Yes. Push that lever"

"Please don't tell me that's 'sposed to be D for Doctor." Donna pushed the lever.

"Yes it is. Now if you don't mind I need some help. I need Albert's main code to open up the system. You said you know what it is, right?"

"Huh? Oh yeah!" Donna suddenly remembered. "It's R-E-D-H-E-A-D."

The Doctor froze, then looked at her in utter confusion.

"_Redhead_!"

"Hey, so he has good taste."

The Doctor gave another exasperated sigh and began typing.

"How's it look, Doctor?" Rebecca asked as she joined the Doctor on his left hand side.

"Looking good, Becky." he replied.

Donna looked behind to see where Chris was. She spotted him at Claire's side with his hands resting on her shoulders, speaking softly to her. She decide it was probably best is she didn't get involved for now.

"Just programmed the new coordinates." continued the Doctor. "Time to save the world."

He type in a few more commands, and then stabbed at the 'Enter' key.

The control room and the huge room beyond it began to quake as the rockets fired up. The Doctor laughed in joy as the computer announced the second missile's launch procedure had been activated, and Donna and Rebecca couldn't help but smile with the Doctor's contagious happiness.

Then everything went silent.

Everyone and everything just seemed to stop dead as the rumbling of the missile launch came to an abrupt end. Even Wesker and his plant adversary paused momentarily at the sudden change.

**'Emergency shutdown procedure initiated. Security scans ****commencing.'** one of the computers said.

"I take it that wasn't supposed to happen?" Chris asked as he joined the Doctor, closely followed by Claire and even Steve.

Before anyone could offer explanation, an alarm sounded.

**'Warning. Missile two payload, contaminated.'** the computer spoke smoothly into contrastingly tense atmosphere. **'Repeat- Missile two payload contaminated.'**

The announcement was followed by an even more urgent alarm, and then a second announcement.

"What the heck is going on!" the Doctor asked.

**'Warning. Unaccounted B.O.W substance detected in lab. Bio-hazard outbreak confirmed. Primary security response initiated. Biologically corrosive anti- B.O.W gas will be released in ten minutes.'**

"What! No!" the Doctor cried as he frantically searched over the monitors and keyboards for an answer.

"I thought you said you could bypass the security?" Chris demanded.

"I know I did! While they're prepared for launch they-"

Suddenly he stopped and closed his eyes, groaning despairingly. Before anyone could ask, he typed something else into the computer and turned one of the monitors so they could all see.

The screen showed a map of Greenland, with the octagonal 'Umbrella' logo somewhere in the northern region. As they watched, a small rocket shaped object gently trailed from the logo, drawing a dotted line as it went. It moved up the screen, beeping with each move it made, before stopping some distance north of the logo and changing into an 'X'.

"That's the first missile that was fired." the Doctor explained as he moved to another computer.

"But... that means it came down just north of where we are." Chris stated, confused.

"You don't think Al's trying to infect _us_ with the union virus, do you!" Donna asked fearfully.

"Of course he isn't; this whole base was under his control, he wouldn't use a missile to poison it." the Doctor countered, his face contorted in a look of mental pain as the pieces began to slot in place. "The missile was fired in the wrong direction on purpose and then its flight pattern was cancelled- it's of no threat to anyone."

He looked furiously at Wesker.

"You planned this didn't you? You knew we'd try to do something so you set this up so we'd get ourselves killed."

Wesker didn't answer, still trapped in the tangle of vines.

"What exactly is happening Doctor?" Claire asked.

"The security system detected that we put another virus in the missiles and thinks there's an outbreak, so it's responding to the situation."

"You said you'd be able to bypass security!" Chris repeated angrily.

"Yes, I could have; except Wesker fired one missile just to make me think that he'd started trying to infect the whole world and straight afterwards shut down the rocket launch confirmation. As soon as I tried to fire that missile, the system knew the missiles were being used without permission, terminated the launch and scanned them. Now that it knows there's a rogue virus loose in this place, that gas will destroy all organic tissue throughout the whole lab, including us, unless anyone knows how to repair a partially vaporised door, and without the missiles we can't spread the D-virus. Ideas anyone?"

Everyone looked at him blankly. Quite unexpectedly, it was Steve who came up with the first idea.

"_Wesker..._" he growled "_what... was... his... plan_?"

"Well," the Doctor overcame his surprise first "according to this the missile room has sealed. Looks like he thought we would go there and try to override the missiles themselves so he could trap us in there. As for how he'd be protected... well, this room would have kept him safe from harm, but then again..." the Doctor trailed off in thought. Everyone was silent as they waited for him to speak.

Finally, just as it appeared that Donna's patience had reached its limit, the Doctor snapped his fingers and looked up.

"If Albert was down here all this time while the rest of the base was contaminated, there must be an emergency exit somewhere. Maybe that lift on the other side of the room goes to the surface. Steve, do you know where that lift goes?"

Steve grumbled in thought. It didn't help his concentration when Wesker managed to retrieve one of his pistols and started shooting 'Plant 47's' vines in half.

"God, this can't be happening!" Donna massaged her temples as the pressure of the situation became intolerable, made worse by the fact that her sickness had started to flare up again. "Please tell me someone's put something in the water and the whole world's just gone barmy."

"Wait a minute." the Doctor turned to Donna and looked at her as though unsure of something, before exploding with "Donna, you've done it!"

"What! No I 'aven't!" said Donna, jumping on the defensive by instinct.

"Yes you have! It's the perfect solution! This is Greenland, and we're surrounded by ice and snow; frozen water!"

The Doctor made a dash to one of the desks behind the operating table and slammed the canister of D-virus down.

"Keep Steve back- if he contracts this stuff he'll die." he said as he unsealed and opened the steel cylinder. Donna came over and looked inside, but quickly pulled back as the fumes strung her eyes and nose.

"What is that stuff?" she asked in disgust.

"D-virus." the Doctor said as he started messing around with bottles of chemicals. "Originally, I made the D-virus highly sensitive to oxygen to make it spread through the air quicker, but since we can't spread it through the air I'm going to change it so it becomes highly sensitive to water instead. If we can get this stuff outside, all we need to do is pour it on the snow, and such an excessive amount of available ice combined with the virus' regenerative genes will cause it to reproduce itself and spread epidemically."

"You can make the virus reproduce itself through water!" Rebecca asked astounded.

"That's right. Then we can evaporate the snow and that will carry the D-virus genes into the water vapour."

"And how exactly are we supposed to melt enough snow to carry the D-virus across the world?" Chris protested.

"This base is about to be filled with a corrosive toxic substance. That's proves that even the air in here can be controlled, and we still have some time before the gas is released. What I'm gonna do is change the air supply in here till its all pure oxygen. If the whole base is full of oxygen and we set fire to it, the heat will start melting the snow above. Hottest barbecue on earth."

"You sure something that could work?" Donna asked doubtfully.

"When I get a chance to use the terraforming module in the TARDIS it will." the Doctor gave her a conspiratorial wink.

"Tardis? What's tardis?" Rebecca asked.

"Er, well..." the Doctor thought quickly.

"It's an invention of ours." Donna provided brightly. "Part of our previous research into rainfall. It stands for..." Donna paused as she tried to think of something, while at the same time look as though she was giving a dramatic pause. Eventually she said "Stands for 'Terraforming... Atmospheric... Ratio... Disruption System.'"

Everyone looked at her, trying to work out if what she's said made any sense to them.

"Well he named it." Donna gestured to the Doctor.

"Yeah, that's right!" the Doctor became enthusiastic again. "In fact that's just reminded me of something important we need to do."

He abandoned the D-virus for a moment and gathered everyone at the computer bank.

"Rebecca, this computer here seems to control the air supply in the lab. Login, lower all gas levels to zero percent, and then raise the oxygen levels to one hundred percent. Now the rest of you." the Doctor waved his hands in a beckoning way to bring everyone but Rebecca closer to him. "When we met each other in the foundation support level, I noticed there was this blue box, some part of the security system I think. Now, if I can get my hands on it, I'm pretty sure I can use the sonic screwdriver to slice into it and find a way for us to escape."

"There's no way we can get to it before that gas is released." said Chris "Can't you get into it from here?"

"Already tried the computers. They've been disconnected from the security system. We'll need an actual security console if we want to find a way out. Fortunately, I noticed while we were up there that there was a box of explosives nearby, and Jill dropped a load of grenades and explosive charges when we were attack by the hunters."

"That's a point, where is Jill?" Donna only just realised there was someone missing. The Doctor and Chris looked at her grimly, and Donna recoiled and held her hand to her mouth in shock.

Claire looked sad, but appeared to have already guessed what had happened to her friend. She took hold of the Doctor's shoulder and tugged him back round, saying "What exactly do you want us to do?"

"Look, I know this sounds strange but you have to trust me." the Doctor said earnestly. "I want you to use the rest of the shells you have for the linear launcher to blow apart those pillars out there." he pointed out of the window at the towers of support beams that were holding the roof up. "If they get wrecked, I can use these computers to take control of the hunters up there with their inhibitors and make them set off the explosives. If this works, the chain reaction will cause the flooring between the blue box and here to collapse and it will fall through, and once it's here we'll be able to see about escaping."

The Doctor looked at Donna with a smug glint in his eye. Donna, however, was a bit more concerned with the idea of taking everyone inside the TARDIS to escape. Of course, they couldn't just leave them to die, but she doubted they'd take the sight of the TARDIS interior well.

"If we do that the whole lab may collapse." said Claire.

"And if that happens we won't be able to do anything about spreading the D-virus, not to mention we'll all be killed." Chris agreed.

"Look, if we don't get outside we won't be able to get the D-virus ready to be spread anyway." he reminded them. "I know it sounds mad, but it's our only chance. Besides, we need to smash through the walls to make this plan work."

"Why's that?" Donna asked.

"Even with the whole lab full of oxygen, it'll take some pretty high temperature to set fire to it. The only way I can think of is to set the rockets to carry out a second launch. The jets will only be active for a few seconds before they shut down again, but at that temperature it'll be enough to ignite even the slightest concentration of flammable gas. Destroying the foundation supports will certainly cause enough damage to crack the wall open, but we've got to do it now. That linear launcher fires a miniature fusion shot, and if you use it when the oxygen levels are high enough, it may be enough to spark it too."

"I've done it!" Rebecca declared. "It says it'll take just under two minutes before the oxygen reaches critical levels."

Claire looked at Donna uncertainly.

"I said you could rely on him." Donna said.

Claire still looked uncertain, but seemed prepared to trust Donna's word. She looked at Chris and said "It's now or never, bro."

Chris looked out the cracked window towards the pillars, then down to the liner launcher he'd dumped on the floor.

"Damn it, let's give it a try!"

"Excellent!" the Doctor said as the Redfield siblings recovered the small cannon and its ammunition and hauled them to the doorway. "Rebecca, get over to that D-virus and try to find some sort of chemical accelerator; there's some bottles marked with G.A.S, they might be the thing. I'll be there in a moment."

As Rebecca went over to the work desk, the Doctor turned back to Donna and said "Which of these computers did you use to control Steve's inhibitor?"

"This one- why? You're not going to try and control him are you?" Donna looked at Steve who was standing in the middle of the lab staring blindly ahead of himself. For a moment Donna wondered if the Doctor had given up hope of getting Steve back to normal, but she quickly scolded herself, knowing that he'd never think like that.

"No, I need it so I can find the controls for the hunters in the foundation support floor." he explained as he accessed the computer she'd pointed out.

"Well why don't I deal with that?" she said as she sat in Wesker's chair and turned the monitor towards herself. "I'm good with computers. Best temp in Chiswick, remember?"

"I don't want you dealing with this part." the Doctor said darkly as he turned the monitor back to face him. Donna immediately took exception to the Doctor's dismissal.

"Oi, what'ja mean by that! Who was the one who took control of Steve's inhibitor? Who was the one who found out Wesker's code in the first place? Are saying you don't think I can handle it?"

"Donna, I don't want you to be do this because I'm about to take control of those creatures and use them as though they're play things instead of living people who were experimented on." he looked down in shame. "It's the only way we can do this. I've got to make those hunters set off the explosives so that the TARDIS will fall down here. If I don't, we'll all die and the D-virus won't spread, meaning the whole world will still be at risk from the union virus. But if I do, those hunters will be killed in the blast as well. That's why I don't want you to do this."

They paused, the Doctor having said all he needed to say, Donna unsure what to say.

Outside, the linear launcher discharged its shot, which flew across the chamber and struck the distant tower with burst of blinding light and deafening noise. When the effect of the explosion subsided, the mighty pillar seemed more like a pile of rickety scaffolding, but it was still standing; just.

Donna made a decision and pulled the monitor back to her.

"You hurry up and deal with that doctor virus, space man." she said. "I'll deal with this."

"Donna," the Doctor started to sound angry "I just said-"

"Well since when did I take orders from you!" she demanded. Donna then calmed down and said "We've no time to argue. We've got to deal with the union virus for everyone's sake. I'm not afraid to do my part in this, and I'm not going to let you be a martyr and deal with all the bad things yourself; you should know that by now."

The Doctor looked at Donna with an unreadable expression. Donna held the monitor in place in case he tried to pull it away from her.

Then, to her surprise, the Doctor smiled at her. He looked sad, but at the same time he also looked proud.

"Donna Noble," he said "you really are brilliant."

"You don't think I know that?" Donna laughed "Stop getting sappy with me Doctor and go do your job."

The Doctor gave her one last grin, then rushed over to Rebecca and started inspecting the bottles she picked out. Donna quickly began typing away as another linear shot illuminated the cavern. The already damaged pillar was broken in two, yet the top half failed to come loose from the ceiling. Donna went on typing. It was only a matter of moments before she had a hunter under her control and was ready to set off the explosives.

"Hey, Chris," she called out "could you come and help me with this? I don't know how to set off bombs."

Chris left the linear launcher and darted back in the room. He quickly explained how they worked, then went back to join Claire, aware they were running out of time within which they could safely use the linear launcher without risk of sparking the oxygen saturated atmosphere.

As Donna used the interactive controls to make the hunter grasp the detonator, she hesitated. Now it actually came down to it, she only just realised what it would mean. The creature she was controlling was once a human, who'd been subjected to torturous activities in order to change it into the monster it was now. And the moment she used the C4 explosives, it would die, and it'd be her fault. She knew that the Doctor said he couldn't do anything for them, but she also knew that wouldn't make her feel any better.

Steadying her resolve, Donna pushed forward on the joystick and activated the bomb.

As the screen flashed into static, a ferocious roar filled Donna's ears. She closed her eyes, imagining the nearby hunters who'd been killed and wounded in the explosion.

Then she realised.

The room the hunters were in was about thirty floors up; she couldn't have heard them from there.

The roar had come from outside.

The Doctor and Rebecca appeared at her side as she stood up and they looked out the window.

The ruined support tower had fallen free of where it was hanging with a booming impact, but it hadn't drowned out the sound of the monster's call. Balancing like a spider with it's four limbs holding onto the edges of the maze walls, a sinewy, twisted body, with a rat-brown hide and a spike-tipped, lashing tail lurked forward with another blood chilling scream.

Before anyone could move, the creature broke into a charge, heading straight for Chris and Claire.

From her position, Donna could just see them at the edge of the blown open entrance to the control room, Chris turning to face the monster. He was too slow- it struck the linear launcher with the full force of it's enhanced muscles and bowled the brother and sister into the cave like hole in front of the control room door.

The Doctor sprang to the door way, leaned round the frame and blasted the monster with a dose of first aid spray as it tried to climb in.

The B.O.W howled and fell back, while Claire and Chris scrambled into the control room.

"What in Rassilon's name is wrong with me!" the Doctor raged to himself. "I just used the enhanced first aid spray again!"

A horrific screech tour from the terrible beast as the sounds of ripping and bubbling flesh proclaimed yet another mutation taking place

"Did you see it's face!" Claire was white with shock, her voice trembling as she spoke.

Chris looked too stunned to reply, but he did manage two words.

"It's Leon..."


	12. Chapter 12

It appeared again in the doorway. The body was thin and lithe; a segmented carapace squelched around swollen internal organs. There were no feet, only four hands, each stretched with wide long grasping fingers. Where before it was the size of a licker, now it had mutated to the size of a Tyrant. The bumpy tail was three metres long and ended in a pointy tip. It didn't have a neck, but instead the whole head had been elongated in an attempt to compensate. The lower jaw had vanished and the mouth now opened all the way down it's throat- a toothless, sucking muscle that resembled the underside of a slug. It had no hair, but there was no mistaking Leon's distinctive features behind the blood crazed snarl and toxic-yellow eyes.

"THAT'S Leon!" Rebecca asked.

"To think I thought he was my type!" Donna exclaimed.

With a rattling cry, the fiend that had taken Leon's place darted forward, claws outstretched. A death blow seemed inevitable.

Then an unlikely guardian angel emerged in the form of Steve. Moving with speed inconsistent with his size, Steve lunged into the path of the beast and slammed his fist into it's face.

The mutant crumpled to the floor in a daze. Not giving it the chance to recover, Steve hefted it into his arms and tossed it over his shoulder, slamming the rouge B.O.W into the glass case and sending everyone else running for cover.

"_No one... harmss... MY friendsss_" Steve hissed as he approached the stricken creature. However, it was only stunned for a moment.

The tail fired like a harpoon into Steve's chest and out of his back. Steve bellowed in pain as the tail twisted savagely before receding viciously, leaving a hole bigger than a fist.

Steve fell back, and the freak of nature was upon him again, using it's powerful fingers to latch itself onto Steve with crushing force and stinging him repeatedly with it's tail.

"Doctor, do something!" Donna shouted from where she cowered under the bank of computers with Rebecca.

"Like what!" the Doctor shouted back.

"Doctor! Use the D-virus!" Chris joined in, just before he fired a magnum round into Leon's back.

The monster faltered, allowing Steve to pull his arms loose from the hold he was in. Another shot from the colt python hit the creature's undefended head, and this time it fell free. Steve used the opportunity to slam his elbow heavily into Leon from above. There was a strained gasp of pain as the shell cracked and one of the spikes mounted of Steve's arm broke loose, speared deep into flesh, but the monster used it's new position to lift Steve via his legs and throw him down onto the block operating table.

Steve rolled over it, nearly flattening the Doctor as he did.

"Steve," the Doctor tried to help his malformed friend to his feet "You just got to knock him down and then get away from him. I can get him with the D-virus but if you get doused in it too-"

Steve tossed himself against the side of the operating table, seizing it in a bear hug which caused the stone to crack. Leon came at Steve again, climbing onto the table and scoring four gashes on Steve's face. Unfazed, Steve ripped the block loose and smashed it against the ceiling, crushing his enemy in the process. The monster fell back to the floor, and Steve moved to finish it with the block.

Unexpectedly, the B.O.W threw a backhand slap to Steve's chin, the sound echoing like a pistol being fired. While Steve was distracted, the creature dived forward and clamped it's sucking mouth on Steve's chest wound. Steve cried out in pain and dropped the oblong rock, which broke in half on his head.

Steve fell to his knees, clutching his chest where highly acidic saliva ate into his body through the wound he had. Leon reared up, hissing triumphantly.

Steve's blow came out of nowhere. Suddenly falling forward, he reached out and his talons came flying. The bestial thing countered with a blow that broke Steve's arm with a resounding 'CRACK', but not before Steve's diamond hard nails and impossible strength tour open it's mouth.

The hiss of success became a wail of despair as the monster hopped back, shattering what remained of the observation window as it landed on the frame. Shards of glass and some computer monitors tumbled away as it rocked about in pain. Then the Doctor came bounding over one of the smashed devices, lobbing a beaker of cloudy sludge as he went.

The liquid landed in a splat on the monster's face. The creature just had time to screech in agony before it tumbled backwards, out the window and into the test area. Everyone quickly came out of hiding and gathered round Steve.

"Anyone hurt?" the Doctor asked in alarm.

"What the hell do you think?" Claire spoke in outrage and distress as she tried to help Steve.

"What now, Doctor?" Chris asked.

"We've got to get away from here. The D-virus is slow to react, and it could be anything from five minutes to five hours before it has any effect on him." The Doctor said as he gestured to where Leon had fallen from.

As though in response, the monster lunged back into view, jumping back onto the window frame. Foaming from it's wrecked mouth and retching in fury, it dived forward, knocking aside everyone but Rebecca and Chris. It's contaminated mouth once again found Steve's chest wound.

Donna felt the Doctor knock her to the floor and clasp his arms round her head protectively as the Survivors loosed off shots at their former ally. As the monster writhed in pain born from a variety of injuries, Steve reached out, gripped the offending head in his still functional arm and twisted sharply, rewarding himself with a snap of bone.

The B.O.W pulled back again, still alive but badly hurt. Steve seized the opportunity. There was a flash of claws, and Leon's head tumbled out the door.

The decapitated body danced silently like a manikin. Steve climbed to his feet, grabbed it with both hands and slung it against the wall. The monster was still twisting and struggling in torment as it splintered the metal panel.

For the finale, Steve ran straight at the crippled form, executed an impressive acrobatic flip, and used his hunched and spiked back to body slam the headless creature with all his strength.

The torso obliterated under the impact, sending shell fragments everywhere. Steve collapsed to the floor, utterly spent. The wall and floor around him was smeared with a white, gel-like blood, and Donna was sickeningly reminded of smashed open Cadburys cream eggs so often advertised on the sides of double decker buses back home. Suddenly, she felt her stomach lurch, and she gave a dry heave for what must have been the sixth time that day.

"Are you alright?" the Doctor asked as he moved his arms to get a look at her face. It was clear from his expression that he didn't like what he saw; Donna's skin was tinged with a slight green and she was hyperventilating. Nevertheless, she was still Donna Noble and her temper was still healthy and even more enthusiastic, what with illness adding to the list of things that were irritating her.

"Of course I'm all right, now get off my legs!"

"Donna, you look awful."

"Where'd you learn to be such a charmer?" Donna made a gargantuan effort to compose herself and said "I just feel a bit sick; I've been feeling that way for a while now."

"Oh. Well, it sounds like it's just nausea then." the Doctor patted her on the shoulder cheerfully. "Just don't do anything to put any strain on you."

"Oh don't worry; you can be sure I won't."

"Good girl! Now..." the Doctor hopped up and went to inspect Steve.

The other three were already there, Claire and Rebecca looking over Steve's wounds. Steve was obviously in a lot of pain; a very bad sign for a creature who was supposed to have been mutated to the point where he only had the vaguest memories of pain.

"What's wrong with him? Claire asked the Doctor, close to tears.

"It's the D-virus." the Doctor stated grimly. "It's starting to react with Steve's body."

"Is he going to die?"

The Doctor didn't reply, a look of guilt creeping onto his face. His was spared any further questioning by the electronic voice speaking again.

**'Warning- oxygen concentration has reached critical levels. Internal atmosphere is unbalanced. Biologically corrosive anti- B.O.W gas has been delayed by ****approximately five minutes.'**

"The pillar!" the Doctor looked out the window. The second tower was still standing.

"No!" the Doctor cried as he grabbed his head in exasperation.

"Why didn't you destroy that support tower! I told you we need to get the... blue box!"

Before Chris could retaliate to the unfairness of the outburst, the Doctor turned away again a said quietly to himself "That's it. The oxygen is too high to use the linear launcher. We're trapped in here."

A dark silence descended on the room, broken only by the muffled noise coming from the battle between Wesker and his plant which was still raging.

"Makes no difference." Chris pointed out. "Leon smashed the launcher before we'd even started to take down the second pillar."

The Doctor suddenly held up a finger to silence Chris, his brow creased in thought. After a second or two he spoke.

"Maybe; maybe just one more chance. Chris, come with me and help me check the remains of that launcher."

The Doctor scooted off into the cave outside the room. Chris frowned in uncertainty and went to join him.

Donna sluggishly climbed to her feet and stepped forward till she was next to Claire and Rebecca.

Rebecca rose from her crouched position and looked at Donna. This was the first time they'd actually met, Donna realised in mild surprise.

"Hey, I'm Donna." she said.

"Rebecca." the medic replied simply, before saying "Are you okay? You don't look so well."

"Well after what's been going on here it's not surprising, is it?" Donna grumbled. She looked down at Steve and Claire again.

"Can't you do anything for him?" Donna had gathered from Wesker's spy cameras that the youngest of the Survivors was some sort of nurse or doctor.

The girl gave a bewildered look, clearly finding Steve's physiology way over her head.

Donna looked back at Steve, then moved to stand next to Claire.

Claire had laid her hand against Steve's face, looking upon him with hopeless eyes. As Donna watched, Steve lifted his own hand to his face and gently stroked Claire's hand with one of his massive fingers. Of course, Donna had no idea just how reminiscent this scene was. She knelt down silently, and Rebecca took her leave, carefully stepping over scattered pieces of Leon's body in order to get back to the canister of D-virus.

At first, neither Claire nor Steve responded to Donna's presence. They just continued to look at each other as Steve began to die. They remained that way, ignoring the sound of the Doctor's frantic voice wafting through the door and Rebecca's searching around the desk area for something, till it was finally Steve who broke the silence.

"_Better... like... this,_" he groaned out. "_Don't... want... to... live... as... monster._"

Claire didn't answer.

Donna turned her head to look at the young girl. She sensed Donna looking at her and spoke.

"I... I thought... we could just... find him. Then, everything... would-"

She cut off there. Donna reached out and laid her arm round Claire's shoulders, and lapsed into silence once again.

At that moment, the Doctor re-entered the room accompanied by Chris, carrying not the linear launcher as they all thought he would, but the shell rack. The Doctor cast a single glance at the trio huddled against the way, and turned away with another guilty look. He ushered Chris over to the jumble of consoles and computers and had Chris dump the shell rack on the desk.

"This is hopeless." Chris complained as the Doctor began zapping the linear ammunition with the sonic screwdriver. "We can't use those 'cos they'll blow this place sky high, we can't use the D-virus and we can't even get out of this lab!"

"Are we really all going to die, Doctor?" Donna asked dejectedly before the Doctor could berate Chris.

The Doctor looked at everyone in turn, and seemed to be struggling to decide what to say.

"Not if I can help it we aren't."

Everyone rounded on Rebecca.

She was standing by the wall at the back of the lab, next to a keypad which had so far gone unnoticed by anyone else. As they watched, she pushed the 'Enter' key, and a door in the wall slid aside, revealing the interior of an elevator.

"Seems like Leon was telling the truth after all. He said Wesker had a master elevator somewhere down here. It was back here all the time."

Rebecca waited expectantly, trying not to look too pleased with herself, while everyone else stayed muted in puzzlement.

Finally, the Doctor pointed an uncertain finger at the lift and asked "How did you find that! And how did you get it open?"

"Well, the map showed me where it was. At the back of the picture of this room there's a square with the letter 'E' in it."

The Doctor and Chris snatched at the map in unison (the Doctor winning by an inch) to confirm what she said. After a second of checking they looked back at Rebecca again.

"And as for how I got it open, Leon wrote the code down on the back of his hand." the medic held up a dismembered, brown and fleshy hand, pinching the bone with her thumb and index finger and holding the appendage as far from her as possible.

Everyone paused in a moment of silent contemplation, quickly putting everything in order in their heads. Then, with a jubilant cry of delight, the Doctor bounded over and scooped up Rebecca in a massive hug.

"Becky you genius! You've done it!"

The tension in the room seem to evaporate. Chris shook his head in pleased disbelief, while Donna and Claire let out a laugh of joy each. Even Steve managed to crack a gruesome smile.

"Right," the Doctor snapped back to business mode in the blink of an eye. He pulled an object from Rebecca's equipment belt and dashed over to Claire without explanation. He swiped an object hanging from her belt too, provoking a "Hey!" of indignation. Chris opened his mouth to protest but was cut off as the Doctor snatched one final object from Chris' belt and took them to the computer desk.

"What are you doing?" Donna asked as she made her way over to the Time Lord as he handled the items.

"Wiring up all the remaining C4 explosive we have," he said as he went to work with the screwdriver "and disrupting the molecule alignment to try and increase the force of the blast. I've negated the fusion reaction in those linear shots so that they shouldn't be hot enough to ignite the air when I set them off. These demolition charges are the only other sort of bombs we have."

"What do you need bombs for?" Chris asked.

"You lot need to take that lift and escape to the surface so that you can pour out the D-virus onto the snow around the buildings. Once that's done I can set off the rockets and burn this whole place, but to make it work properly I've got to blow up that pillar to collapse the wall between here and the missile pads."

"But if you stay here you'll die!" Chris exclaimed.

"The... blue box." the Doctor pointed out. "If I can get to that, I can find another way out; I know I can. It's the only chance we've got now."

Donna had only just begun to realise that being able to escape in the lift meant it would be more difficult for the Doctor to convince the Survivors to let him stay behind so he could recover the TARDIS. However, she had a more pressing issue on her mind.

"I hope you're not expecting me to take off and leave you behind, because-"

"Donna, I'm not listening to this. It's way too dangerous down here and you're in a bad condition." the Doctor interrupted without turning round.

"BECAUSE!" Donna's voice volume increased dramatically "it ain't gonna happen! I'm not leaving till you are."

"Donna, once you'll all gone I've got to set up the missiles so they're ready to fire, plant these explosives on the pillar, find a way out, activate the missiles and get out of here in a matter of minutes. You are _not_ going to be able to help me with any of that and you are _not_ staying down here to try."

"Why can't you just set the missiles on a time delay and escape with us?" Rebecca asked before the argument progressed too far. Donna noticed a slight look of confusion on the Doctor's face as devised a cunning excuse in his mind.

"There isn't a time delay option, or at least not one that would give us enough time. The D-virus has got to be poured into the snow before the heating process begins." he finished with the explosives and went to look at the D-virus. "Its advance reaction ability means if the snow has already started to melt when the D-virus is mixed in it won't reproduce. It'll start reacting to the contrasting environmental mediums and that could impair its ability to do... well, anything. I'm going to have to stay behind, set off the missiles and try and make a dash to the way out, wherever that may be."

"But how are you going to take down the pillar?" Chris asked.

"The only way I can. Carry the shell rack and the C4 to the pillar, prime them to blow, if it works hack into the security system with the 'blue box' console, get back here, set off the rockets and try to get out in time.

"Doctor," Claire looked over at one of the computers "there's less than five minutes before this place is choked with B.O.W gas. You can't possibly do all of that and get out of here in time."

The Doctor added more substances to the D-virus, ignoring the comment and the fact that everyone was watching him as they waited for an answer.

"Doctor, this D-virus isn't worth dying for." Chris insisted. "We've stopped Wesker and the union virus, so let's just leave it at that. This idea probably wouldn't work anyway."

The Doctor still didn't speak. The only response he made was to frown dangerously. Donna knew he wouldn't leave without the TARDIS.

Behind them, Steve lurched upwards, using the wall to support himself till he was standing.

'_Surely he's not going to tell the Doctor to give up as well_?' Donna thought.

"Doc-" Rebecca started to say.

"NO!" the Doctor spun round to glare at everyone so fiercely that even Donna didn't answer back. "You don't understand! This is more important that just giving up and escaping out the back door! This is really important, both for you lot and for me! There is no other way around it so that's what I'm going to do, even if I might lose my life trying to do it!"

The Doctor waited to see if there was an answer. He didn't receive one.

Donna was torn. On the one hand, she was outraged that the Doctor would rather risk getting killed trying to save the TARDIS than leave it behind and live. On the other hand, the time/space travelling machine was the only way they could get back to their own reality, and if he failed to get it back they'd be stranded in a world that wasn't their own for the rest of their lives.

"_The Doctor... mustn't die_." Steve's voice rolled over them suddenly.

All five people in the room looked over to him.

Steve had the frame of the linear shell rack looped round his arm. In his hand he was holding the collection of C4 blocks.

"Steve, what are you doing?" Claire asked.

"_The Doctor... said he'd save Claire... and her friends... and... stop Wesker. Doctor... must live_."

Steve turned away from the desk, handling the C4 with surprising skill as he armed the detonators. Apparently he'd been watching Donna's work closely when Chris showed her how to use the explosives.

"_I'll... blow up... the pillar_."

"You can't!" Claire panicked as she stepped towards Steve. "You'll be killed!"

"_I... am... dying_." Steve hissed out. "_Go... now... escape_."

Before Claire could argue, Steve looked to the Doctor.

"_Save... them... Doctor_."

Steve moved towards the door.

The Doctor and Claire forward as one.

"You don't have to do this Steve! I can find another way!" the Doctor said desperately.

"Steve, I don't want you to die!" Claire grabbed hold of Steve's muscular arm.

Steve took one more look at Claire-

"_I... missed... you... Claire_."

-and then he lunged, pulling free from Claire's grip with ease and bounding out the doorway and into the arena.

"STEVE!" Claire shrieked as she made a dive for the passage he'd disappeared into, only being held back by Chris jumping forward and catching hold of her. Donna could only watch, almost as though in a trance, as the Doctor went after Steve in a hopeless attempt to try and stop his suicide charge.

* * *

The Doctor stopped at the bottom of the pile of rubble, seeing Steve was already too far ahead to catch up with.

"Steve, don't do it!" he yelled franticly.

The green skinned creature paid no heed; just went on running through the shortcut he himself had created in the maze.

The Doctor could only watch, absolutely powerless as Steve went flat out towards the pillar. As he cleared the rubble of the maze, Steve sped up for three massive paces, before he jumped into the air, warped muscles propelling him to an unbelievable length as he ploughed into the side of the collection of steel girders.

The tower groaned as it alone took the unbearable weight of the entire laboratory pressing down from above, but still it stood.

Extracting himself from the crumpled bars he found himself in, Steve reached to the corner of the pillar. The towers were actually triangular shaped, with the angles marked by tree trunk thick beams that led from floor to ceiling, keeping the criss-crossing supports in place. With them gone, the pillar would collapse in an instant.

Steve slammed the small network of C4 on the inside of one of the corner beams and hit the detonator, before swinging away like an ape.

As the Doctor predicted, the explosion that tore a hole in the metal length sent out an extra powerful shock wave which made the tower shudder, parts of it beginning to buckle.

Steve continued without regard to the danger he was in. The pushed the shell rack in between the bars and likewise set them to explode before seeking cover by clinging to the opposite side of one of the main beams.

The linear shells exploded, taking out another thick beam and dozens of smaller girders. The blast was so powerful that Steve was knocked from his position and tossed to the floor.

The tower rippled with tremors, teetering dangerously. Lumps of iron, rock and ice plunged from the roof, metre long icicles nearly running Steve through. The tower began to lose its stability, but it still stood.

The Doctor thought that was it. The bombs were used up. The tower had failed to go down. The TARDIS was separated by more than a thousand tons of architectural genius. Steve, however, had other ideas.

With a roar, he jumped with flea like agility back onto the pillar again. Crawling into the hole in the tower-like pillar which gaped open on twosides like a maw, Steve braced his hunched back against the final beam that kept the overwhelming support tower from collapsing, and began to push.

The Doctor watched in horror as he tried to decide what to do- whether to think of what a cost it would be to lose his precious TARDIS and let Steve continue, or take the moral high ground and make a vain attempt to stop Steve from killing himself.

The Doctor didn't have the chance to make up his mind, as with a ear-bending scream of tearing metal that reverberated throughout the entire room, the final beam broke, and the tower began to fall.

The last the Doctor saw of Steve was his titanic form stretching to his full height, giving one final bellow of victory, before tons worth of metal and rock plummeted down in their multitudes and buried him from sight.

The Doctor wasted no time in turning from the display of destruction and picking his way over the pile of rubble that led to the control room, practically in a daze as he thought deeply to himself.

'_I couldn't just leave the TARDIS down here._' he reasoned with himself. '_Even cut off from our world it's powerful- too powerful to risk just leaving it around when all the defences are disabled. And it was Steve's choice. He was dying. What better way could it have been than to die helping to stop the union virus and preventing the TARDIS from falling into dangerous hands_.'

Yet no matter how the Doctor looked at it, all he could see was the scene of Steve being crushed to death; wounded beyond anything that even his advanced healing abilities could cope with, and the knowledge that if he, the Doctor, hadn't insisted on staying behind while the others escaped in the lift it wouldn't have happened.

Steve had died for the Doctor's sake; for blind belief that the Doctor's plans had to succeed, no matter what the cost. The Doctor had hoped that he could have helped Steve mentally to overcome the damage that becoming a monster had done to him. All he'd managed to do was convince the boy that his life was an expendable factor in the Doctor's plans to save the world.

He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he didn't notice he'd already made it back to the control room until a savage fist impacted against his chin, knocking him back into the corner.

"THIS IS ALL YOU DAMN FAULT!" Claire screamed at the Doctor, tears streaming down her face, hands raised with clawed hands as though she wanted to strangle the man.

"WE COULD HAVE DONE... SOMETHING! HE COULD HAD GOT OUT OF HERE WITH US, BUT YOU HAD TO DO EVERYTHING YOUR WAY, DIDN'T YOU!"

"Claire, stop it!" Chris tried to sound firm, but it was clear that seeing his sister like this was the final straw, sapping what reserves of courage and willpower he had left. He tried feebly to turn her to face him, but Claire just slapped his hand away.

"Who put you in charge anyway!" Claire's raging subsided marginally into hysterical tears. "You just come here and say you understand everything and then play with people's lives in your own little game, while we have to take whatever comes out of it! You're as bad a Wesker! You're sick! You're _evil_!"

"That's enough!" Donna stepped between the Time Lord and the girl. "It's not the Doctor's fault!"

"As if you're any better!" Claire started on Donna without hesitation. "Since you got here all you've done is follow his every instruction like a dog! You must know what he's like- why'd you let him get away with it! Are you really so useless that you have to accepted everything he does just so you don't have to think for yourself, you worthless-"

SMACK!

"I SAID THAT'S ENOUGH!"

Claire gasped, then hiccupped, vaguely taking in the meaning of Donna's words as the stinging blow to her cheek forced her to reset her state of mind.

The room was frozen in stunned silence as Claire took deep, loud breaths and looked around as though she'd just woken from a dream and found herself lost in a dark place.

Then the silence was broken, by the sound of soft crying.

Donna immediately crossed the distance between them with one step and embracing the younger girl as she wept bitterly.

The Doctor couldn't bear to look. He half hoped someone else would start blaming him for something; then maybe he might feel a fraction less ashamed of himself for what he'd done. How could he even begin to deny everything Claire had said?

Suddenly a klaxon went off making everyone jump.

**'Warning.'** the voice interjected into the siren's wail. **'Biologically corrosive anti-B.O.W gas will be released in one minute.'**

"We _have _to go." Rebecca stated as she went into the lift and stood ready to hit the button that would send the metal box to the surface.

Using the wall for support, the Doctor climbed back to his feet and said "Yes, all of you. Get out of here now."

Chris placed his hands on Claire's shoulders, and led her without resistance towards the lift. Donna turned to look at the Doctor.

"Just go Donna. I need you. I need you to trust me; go with them. I'll be right behind you."

Donna looked at the Doctor with a regretful expression, as though she could feel his pain, before she went and boarded the master elevator. The doors snapped shut, and the lift hissed away, numbers above the entranceway counting each floor they passed.

A thought struck the Doctor. He returned to the computer consoles, trying to block out his conscience.

"Of course!" he said to himself as he turned on the sonic screwdriver. "Crosswire the information feed of the security system to the rocket launch parameters."

It only took a moment, and then on the screen displaying the details of missiles, another window appeared, showing the countdown to the gas that would flood the complex. About thirty seconds to go.

There was a series of shudders and crashing noises as more of the lab structure fell into the cavernous chamber.

The Doctor looked out through the shattered observation window, and saw something which in spite of everything he'd endured thus far, made even his burdened hearts soar.

The TARDIS, standing proudly atop of the pile of rubble like a divine temple on a mountain, it's barely functional natural defences stopping it from being buried under the remains of the destroyed roof.

The Doctor managed a weak smile as his glorious travelling machine shone with power, just waiting to escape from the dark and miserable place. Then the smile vanished as a smashing of glass killed the silence of the control room. He spun round.

Wesker emerged triumphant from the armoured-glass case, dripping blood and slime from his once pristine suit, nursing his mauled right arm, stamping on a stray vine from the pulped 'Plant 47' which still undulated in spasms of death.

"You-are-_mine_!" Wesker snarled.

The Doctor dived for the doorway, wincing as a hurled chunk of glass whizzed over his head and hit a monitor which burst into sparks.

As the Doctor made it out of the room he dared to look back, catching a fleeting glimpse of Wesker reloading a magnum before the Time Lord passed the wall and headed into the test area.

The Doctor zigzagged his way towards the maze. Wesker's magnum boomed from the window of the control room, and a bullet ricocheted off the metal floor near the Doctor's feet.

There was another deafening 'BANG' as a second shot left the pistol and passed a mere foot in front of the targets path, before Wesker jumped from the window and onto the remains of the pillar where the Nemesis had attacked from.

Another shot was fired, flying wide of the mark.

The Doctor discovered it was harder to continue weaving from side to side as he found himself hopping over wrecked maze walls. Behind him Wesker gave chase, firing while on the run. The bullet missed by the slightest of inches, but the Doctor knew pain and rage would only throw off Wesker's aim for so long.

The Doctor continued to make a beeline for the TARDIS. Being a Time Lord, he had less peripheral vision than a human, so the Doctor had no idea that a stray crimson head was coming from his right until it practically fell on top of him.

The Doctor struggled with the dead weight as the monster tried to take a bite out of him. One of it's arms was missing, substituted with a jagged stump. It's whole body had been flayed of skin by ripping claws which left only the occasional flap of tissue clinging to it's body. The legs were all twisted and sprained; the creature clearly had bad damage to it's spine. It was only these injuries that allowed the Doctor to hold the thing back as it tried to bite him.

As they danced and scuffled with each other, Wesker lined up for another shot. With a particularly clumsy lurch, the Doctor swung free of the crimson head and pushed it so it was between him and the ex- S.T.A.R.S captain. As he ran for it, a gunshot echoed through the cavern again and thudded into the monster, knocking it down.

Wesker took careful aim at the Doctor, but then he too found himself on the receiving end of zombie jaws.

While Wesker fought off the attack from the two crimson heads, the Doctor continued to make his way over the wreckage. Around him, more virally infected survivors of the recent carnage emerged from where they had been buried from sight by the collapsing roof and walls. The Doctor pushed onwards, and at last he came to the mound that used to be the support pillar. On top, the TARDIS shone like a guiding star. He began to climb.

Wesker managed to toss the crimson heads away from him, but in the process he lost his gun. Not that it made much difference; he was a killing machine through and through.

The Doctor went on up the slope. He risked looking over to his right and was rewarded with the view of the crumbling cavern wall opening into another chamber. From where he stood, he could see what looked like a huge metal frame held in place by hydraulic arms, definitely the sort of thing used in missile launch bays. The plan was working perfectly.

He then looked down behind him, and was punished with the sight of Wesker, having now made it to the base of the junk hill, was climbing after him, on all fours like a beast. As the Doctor frantically darted up the pile of girders and rocks, an announcement blared out from the remaining speakers in the room.

**'Warning.'** said the artificial voice. **'Biologically corrosive anti- B.O.W gas will be released in ten seconds.'**

Hearts beating wildly, the Time Lord pushed on, desperate to make it to the TARDIS before Wesker reached him. It was only two metres away.

The Doctor took the key from his pocket at the same moment Wesker came just within reach. A hand shot out clawed at the Doctor's foot. The sole tour in Wesker's tremendous grip, but the Doctor escaped, falling forward and jamming the TARDIS key into the lock.

**'Five...'** the computer began to count down. **'Four...'**

The door opened, and at last the Doctor was reunited with the TARDIS.

**'Three...Two...'**

Then Wesker followed seeming to fill the doorway with his diabolical form.

**'One...'**

Wesker had just enough time to take in the police box interior and say sharply "What!"

**'Zero.'**

The security codes for the gas pumps were processed, and in so doing the codes acted as an activation command when the information downloaded into the software that the Doctor had transferred onto the missile control system.

The gas managed to taint about 0.1% of the oxygen thick atmosphere before the missiles did their work. The jets fired up, and in an instant the very air ignited.

The TARDIS door swung closed defensively, but not fast enough to stop the super-heated blast of pure force energy that came as a prelude to the fire itself from smashing into Wesker's back.

The hybrid creature was thrown into the air as though he were as light as a feather, hitting the column in the centre of the TARDIS console. Nothing short of a falling sun could even chip the tube itself, but Wesker wasn't as durable. As he impacted against it, there were several cracking sounds as bones snapped without resistance. Wesker rebounded from the column and landed on the grated floor, coughing out mouthfuls of blood.

The Doctor didn't like the idea of just leaving the man there, unrestrained and staining the floor, but he had other things to concern himself with. Even with the defences up and running, the time capsule was designed to withstand the ethereal fabric of space and time's base matter, not a vortex of fire. The TARDIS rocked and shuddered as the outside was scrubbed fiercely by the all consuming flames. The Doctor was practically bouncing round the console, pulling levers and flipping switches as fast as he could. The TARDIS apparently sensed the seriousness of the situation, as it uncharacteristically, and with an intense amount of effort, started up without any form of protest or complaint. The familiar and comforting wheezing and moaning soon began to replace the roaring of fire which faded away gently.

* * *

The last of the D-virus drained out of the canister, soaking into the snow among the buildings that masqueraded as a research base. Chris dropped the small keg in the snow and began running back to where the others were waiting by their grounded plane. He didn't know how big the fireball would be, if indeed it came after all, but he knew it'd be big.

He got back to the plane quickly and looked over those who'd survived their little mission. It was a sorry sight indeed.

His heart ached as he looked at Claire. The poor girl was distraught over seeing Steve give up his life to save them all, after all she'd done to try and get back to him. Donna was still doing what she could to comfort her, but it wasn't easy in her condition. Chris had no idea what was wrong with her, but she looked like hell- her skin had gone from sea green to chalk white, her hands were trembling uncontrollably and she was sweating feverishly. Rebecca was trying to check Donna's condition, but she seemed to be stumped. Overall, Rebecca was coping the best out of all of them, but she was just as tense.

The main thing on Chris' mind at the moment was the Doctor. Would he succeed in burning the lab? And more importantly, would he get out in time?

Just at that moment, everyone froze as they felt a slight tremor in the ground. They all looked at each other questioningly as the seismic vibrations grew even stronger. At the same time a peculiar noise began to emanate from an unknown source. A sort of wheezing, groaning noise that sounded vaguely familiar. Rebecca opened he mouth to say something, but never got the chance.

A geyser of fire erupted from within the research buildings, blowing them apart in an instant. A rush of sound echoed across the icy landscape, making the air ripple in a gale force. The flames leapt high in the air, reaching nearly fifty feet, before they subsided and died down to about fifteen feet.

The four people watched the fire dumbfounded. The Doctor had succeeded in destroying the base. The only question- where was he?

"Look!" Claire suddenly barked, making all of them jump. Over to the left, they could see two figures approaching.

Chris couldn't believe his eyes. It seemed impossible to think he could have made it out in time, and yet here he was.

From over the dune of snow, looking as fit and cheerful as ever, came the Doctor, accompanied by none other than Albert Wesker.

* * *

The Doctor landed the TARDIS as quickly as he dared; barely half a second after he'd left. He knew that he risked crossing into his own timeline if he was just slightly out (something he couldn't risk doing, not in parallel world at least) but he was determined to see that his plan worked perfectly, after all that had been sacrificed to make it happen.

The moment the TARDIS had materialised, the Doctor set to work. It only took a few seconds, but he only _had_ a few seconds with which to act.

Setting the controls he ran to the door and ripped it open. He'd landed just a short distance away from the research facility, and already he could feel the rumbling as the fire swept through the lab corridors, eating up the oxygen and making its way to the surface.

The Doctor reached for the button just above the door frame and pressed. The terraforming module on top of the TARDIS, disguised as a police light, shone with a brilliant white as it activated.

"And not a moment too soon." the Doctor grinned as a tower of fire burst from where the bogus research base lay just beyond a rise in the field of snow. The module was more than capable of compensating for the flaws in his plan, making sure that the snow would evaporate despite the cold weather and that the D-virus would survive long enough to be carried via rainclouds across the whole planet. Satisfied that things were going smoothly, the Doctor turned back to Wesker.

The former man now monster was still suffering from the effects of being knocked silly by the explosion, even as his enhanced physical attributes tried to repair the damage. Wesker was conscious, but delirious, and the Doctor decided it would be best to get him out of there before he woke up and realised where he was.

"Alright, come on now Albert." he said soothingly, as an adult might speak to a teenager who had just had their first hangover. Wesker responded in kind, grumbling and refusing to rise without plenty of effort on the Doctor's part.

Soon enough, Wesker was on his feet, staggering mindlessly through the snow, led by the Doctor towards the Survivors plane. As they walked, the Doctor looked over to the lab, and was pleased to see that already the air was shimmering as water vapour rose into the sky.

The others saw him approaching as he came over the small hill of snow, but were apparently to stunned by the fact that he'd survived to go over and greet him.

"Oh that's nice," the Doctor said in mock hurt as he let go of Wesker's shoulder, who promptly fell face first into the snow without any guidance "I escape death by the skin of my teeth, save the world, and you lot don't even come over to see how I am."

"How did you manage to get out of there?" Chris asked.

"The lift at the other end of the room." the Doctor lied perfectly.

Chris looked doubtful, but couldn't be bothered to press the subject further. Instead, he went to inspect Wesker, kicking his burnt back a little bit too hard than necessary to see if he'd react.

"_Don't _get any ideas!" the Doctor warned him. "There's been enough death today and it stops now!"

Chris didn't look like he cared what the Doctor thought. Nevertheless, he controlled himself and moved away from Wesker's prone form, shooting a dark look at both him and the Doctor. The Doctor didn't notice the expression, as his eyes had fallen on Donna.

"Donna, what's wrong?" he asked in genuine concern. Whatever was wrong, it wasn't just shock or nausea.

"_Don't... feel so good_." Donna answered shakily.

Now the Doctor was really worried. If she was sick enough not to lose her temper...

"Donna, did you get injured at all while you were in the lab?" Rebecca asked.

"_I..._" Donna didn't answer as she gripped her hands either side of her head in obvious pain,

"There's a wound on her neck." the Doctor said as he tipped Donna's head to the side and gently scraped away the dry blood to expose the damage. "How did you get this?"

"_W..es...ker..._" Donna managed to say "_bit... me..._"

The Doctor froze, a look of uncomprehending terror on his face. Rebecca took over, wiping Donna's neck clear until the brutal tears in her neck could be seen.

"Ouch!" Rebecca commented sympathetically. "No wonder you're sick- something like this could easily get infected."

"It's worse than that!" the horrified Doctor said. "She's infected with Albert's unique viral strain!"

The atmosphere charged instantly. Chris and Claire joined the small group clustering round Donna.

"But, it can't be that bad, surely?" Chris asked in a worried tone. "Wesker was mutated but he still had control of his mind. The same thing will happen to Donna, right?"

"Not after getting a lungful of the D-virus. I threw some at Leon, and you and Rebecca were already D-virus carriers; both Donna and Wesker had plenty of time to breath the fumes in."

The Doctor cursed himself for being so careless. He'd even let her smell the stuff for God's sake!

"_Doc...tor..._" Donna managed to wheeze out, before she fainted.

"Donna! _Donna_!" the Doctor cried out in panic.

"No, not again." Claire said desperately as she helped Rebecca and the Doctor lay the redheaded woman flat on the ground. "You have to do something Doctor!"

The Doctor looked at Donna's frail body as her skin turned even paler, the pigmentation dying as skin cells slowly ground to a halt.

"Her whole body's going dormant." he explained. "Both viruses are stalling each other- there's nothing I can do!"

All he could do was watch helplessly. His friend, his companion, one of the closest people to him in the whole universe, the woman unlike any other he'd known, who knew when to challenge him, when too back him up, when to do something that was so brilliant and yet so stupid, was dying and there wasn't a single thing he could do to help her.

"Come on Doctor," Chris implored "you're a genius. You must have something that can heal her."

The Doctor suddenly perked up and said "Heal?"

The three humans voices died as they stopped and looked at the Time Lord to see what he'd come up with. They waited in growing apprehension as he just sat there, lost in thought.

Just when it looked like someone might explode, the Doctor moved. He reached into his pocket and brought out a nearly empty can of first aid spray.

"Hold on a sec." Chris said as he saw the can. "That's the thing that made Leon mutate, isn't it?"

"That was just a side effect." said the Doctor as he sniffed the nozzle of the aerosol and thought out loud. "This is the sonically charged first aid spray. It can make dormant virus cells active which can lead to mutation; but all of Donna's cells are dormant, and the viruses are cancelling each other out." he looked at Donna. "It could work. It _could_ work."

"What are you going to do?" Chris asked.

"If I use this on Donna, it could jump start all of her own cells. Then the cells will adapt and start working again and her own immune system will reject the D-virus and Wesker virus since they'll have both stopped each other from functioning properly and they won't be able to resist. Then, if it works, she'll be alive with only a minor change to her biology."

"And if it doesn't work?"

"If it doesn't, one virus might get the upper hand and cause a defensive mutation to fight off Donna's immune system and the other virus, similar to the crimson head mutation."

The Doctor fell silent. No one else replied.

"It's a risk we've got to take. We can't just let Donna die."

"No."

Chris lent in and pulled the first aid spray out of the Doctor's hands. The Doctor jumped to his feet and faced Chris.

"Chris, give me that can, _now_." he said as he reached out for it.

"No." Chris said again, clearly forcing himself to make eye contact with the Doctor. "We've just managed to put an end to the T-virus and every other sort of virus that Wesker and Umbrella created. If we try to cure Donna with this and it goes wrong, we'll be right back where we started, except this time your 'D-virus' won't work on her, right?"

The Doctor stuttered "Well... no, it won't... but..."

"Then we can't risk it." Chris said firmly.

The Doctor looked close to begging. Chris looked away again, unable to face him. It the situation wasn't so urgent, the Doctor probably would have lost his temper. As it was, all he could think about was Donna.

He quickly went to Rebecca's side and grabbed her by the shoulder.

"Becky, you can't agree with this. You don't want this to happen, do you?"

His plea for support went unanswered. Rebecca wouldn't even look up. He looked back at Chris who was still turned away. The Doctor could understand what it was.

They didn't want to see Donna die; they were ashamed to refuse to help. But they'd seen what the bio-organic weapons could do, and the thought of there one genuine chance to stop them forever haunted them more than the thought of abandoning Donna to her fate.

"Claire," he went to the final surviving member of them team and crouched next to her "you know Donna better than them. Okay, only a little better, but do you want to see someone like her die after all of this?"

Unlike the others, Claire looked him dead in the eye, part in despair, but also partly in anger.

"Could you have used that stuff on Steve?" she accused him. The Doctor felt the words like a knife in his stomach, his previous regrets over Steve's death coming back to him.

"Could you have saved Steve with that?" Claire asked when he didn't reply. "Did he die just because you didn't think of it in time?"

She waited for the Doctor to answer. Donna's breathing slowed to the point where it seemed she wasn't breathing at all. The Doctor could feel the pressure of the situation overwhelming him. He hung his head with a distinct feeling of having been defeated.

"It _might_ have worked on Steve." he confessed. "If I'd thought of it then it might have saved him, and there'd have been just as big a risk of it not working and causing him to mutate drastically," he looked Claire in the eye "but I didn't want him to die. If I'd known there was something I could do to save him I'd have done it, regardless of the risk it would've involved. I wouldn't have sacrificed his life for anything."

He stood and turned around so he could address everyone.

"I would love nothing better than to just break all the rules and save everyone whose lives have been taken away by these viruses. Wouldn't you all like to save the people you saw die right in front of you?"

He looked at Rebecca.

"Like Richard,"

She looked up at him in surprise. The Doctor looked over at Chris.

"Or like Jill."

"_Don't you dare_!" Chris rounded on the Doctor, pointing a threatening finger in his direction.

"I don't want to lose Donna any more than you wanted to lose Jill, and all the other friends you've lost. And if there was anything I could do to save any of them, I'd chance it. Please, help me."

The Doctor gave up talking. Instead, he waited to see if anyone would react. From the look on his face, Chris didn't know what to think anymore. For what seemed like an age they waited to see who'd react first. There was no sound except the sounds of a gentle breeze and the cracking fire where the research base once stood.

"Let him try it." Claire said eventually.

The Doctor gave Claire a grateful look. She glanced at him, but looked straight back Donna without acknowledging him.

"Claire..." Chris said weakly, as though he might protest.

"Please Chris. I don't think I can take seeing anyone else die now."

Chris looked at his dejected sister, then at Rebecca, who looked up at him and after a moment's thought gave the slightest nod of agreement, and then looked at the Doctor. With a slight reluctance, Chris handed over the first aid spray.

The Doctor snatched it from him and quickly set about spraying the contents of the can on the wound on Donna's neck. The medicine was soon absorbed into her skin. The Doctor sprayed an extra bit directly into Donna's mouth.

"Right, come on Donna. Wake up." the Doctor said encouragingly as he gently patted his companion's cheek. Donna showed no sign of improvement.

The others gathered around, waiting to see what would happen.

"Donna." the Doctor became more insistent as the seconds ticked by painfully.

Still, there was no sign that Donna was getting any better.

"Donna, please wake up." the Doctor sounded close to tears. "I can't lose you; not you too." he held her by the shoulders, his face less than a foot from hers. "Please, there's never been anyone else like you. You can't just leave me like this; not now. Please just wake-"

Suddenly Donna lurched bolt upright, nearly knocking the Doctor over backwards, choked, and spat out a lump of gunge which landed with a splat on the Doctor's chin.

They both started at each other, Donna with a blank and vacant look, the Doctor with a look of shocked outrage.

The Donna managed to mumble "Sorry, Doctor."

"YEEEEEEEEEEEES!" the Doctor shrieked with glee, driving the Survivors back as he jumped up, swinging Donna round in a massive hug. "YOU'RE ALIVE!"

"Never mind that, put me down; I'm gonna be sick!" Donna shouted over the Doctor.

The Doctor quickly set her down and dodged out the way, just as Donna retched out another load of grey tinted vomit.

"Oh Donna, you really keep me on edge." the Doctor continued joyfully as though he hadn't noticed that Donna had fallen to her knees as a further wave of sickness hit her stomach. "For a moment there I really thought you were done for."

"You'll be done for if you don't shut up!" Donna moaned. "What's wrong with me, and why do I feel so bad?"

"You just had a slight viral disagreement which I just sorted out." said the Doctor as he knelt next to Donna and rubbed her back comfortingly, enticing her to be sick again. "The vomiting is the rejected virus cell matter being removed from your body. You'll be fine in a minute or two."

"Can't you do anything to help?" she asked, forgetting to be bad tempered as she looked to the Doctor for assistance.

"Only one thing to do I'm afraid." the Doctor went on with a cheerful voice and a happy smile. "As Jack advised me when he allowed me to sample his special homemade Bombay mix, 'best thing now is to keep your head down and puke your guts up.' "

Donna glared at him and said "Thanks... a lot." before slapping a hand to her mouth as her stomach grumbled fiercely.

The Doctor stood up and addressed everyone else.

"Well now, that wasn't so bad."

He was greeted with a few relieved smiles, but they all seemed too worn out to think of something to say.

"Now then, just one more thing to do." the Doctor held up the medicinal can.

Claire and Rebecca looked questioningly at the Doctor. Chris, however, guessed what he was up to. His face fell.

"No way." he said. "No way are you doing the same to Wesker."

"Chris, it's the only decent thing to do."

"Decent! Leaving him to die is the most decent thing we can do, after everything he's done!"

"I don't want anyone else to die, Chris. If that means saving Albert Wesker's life, then so be it."

"Well that's not how I see it." Chris sneered in disgust.

"And what happens if he mutates into something even worse?" Claire pointed out, crossing her arms and looking at the Doctor firmly.

"In his case I'll use the sonic screwdriver to regulate the chemical levels to make sure I get the right balance to change him from monster into a man again."

"You think you can change Wesker from being a monster?" Chris asked flippantly. The Doctor ignored him.

"Doing it that way would guarantee success but has a risk of failing to keep his cells from going dormant in the first place, because I agree that we can't let him mutate into something else."

"Actually Doctor, what I'm saying is that it'd be better for everyone if we just let this bastard die right now."

"Chris, since I got here have I really asked that much from you?" the Doctor put on his best pleading, whining voice. Chris frowned in displeasure at the sound.

"Chris, I promise you that this will be perfectly safe, and even if there was some sort of problem I'd take responsibility for whatever happened. In fact, if he did mutate into another B.O.W I'd finish him off before he did any harm."

'_But of course I won't need to worry about keeping that promise because if he lives there won't be any problem._' the Doctor thought to himself.

The others clearly weren't convinced that after all the Doctor's insistence on not resorting to violence he'd kill Wesker if worst came to worst.

"Look, I know this is going to work. Just let me try. If he survives you can take him back to... wherever you came from and turned him over to the authorities to answer for what he's done.

Chris looked at the Doctor, more grumpy than angry, and said "Quick then, before I change my mind."

* * *

He felt vaguely as though he were drifting. He had a strange sensation as though his body was gently moving of it's own accord. It was soothing and calming- and he didn't like it. He was used to the buzz of being ultra alert at all times, sensing even the smallest of external stimuli as a rush. Feelings of calm were of no interest to him.

The view in front of him had been murky red a moment ago. Now it was pitch black. He struggled to open his eyes. He levered one eyelid open. Blinding light met him, and he jammed his eye shut again in pain.

At once he felt outraged with himself. He understood pain, knew it like an old friend; it held no fear for him!

With more willpower than sense, he cranked both eyes open, fighting against the pain as piecing white light burned his vision.

"Oh, so he isn't dead." said a sorely disappointed voice.

Wesker blinked rapidly as he tried to cope with the brightness. Dark shapes began to make themselves clear.

The first one, the one the voice came from, was one he recognised. Chris Redfield, his face partially obscured by the barrel of a large revolver- Barry's trademark .357 colt python unless he was much mistaken. No surprise to see where it was pointed.

The other shape was to the right of his vision and much closer. It wasn't long before he could see it was the Doctor.

Hatred surged through Wesker for the two men right in front of him. He hands shot out faster than his mind could register it. Surprisingly for such a quick move, they both dodged it and stood up. Something in Wesker's mind questioned how they moved so fast, but he was distracted by his own fury.

Senses restoring themselves, he scrambled up. He could see he was outside the lab, in the snow covered wastes of Greenland. They were all there, all the people who'd fought against him and his plans, except for the monster, Steve Burnside.

He looked around as everyone watched him sullenly, but made no move to attack as he'd expected. He didn't bother to wonder why they weren't taking the fight to him; he was far too angry. He made another dive for the Doctor, arms reaching out to throttle him. Again, the Doctor moved aside with unnatural speed, and Wesker ended up face first in the snow.

"No point trying to make a fight of it now, Albert." the Doctor gloated.

As Wesker shook the snow out of his eyes, he suddenly realised. It wasn't them who were moving too fast- it was him moving too slow.

He concentrated carefully and realised he was missing his extra sensory abilities. His eyesight was no longer motion sensitive, his hearing wasn't advanced enough to sense the nature of his surroundings and his body was no longer immune to cold. In fact he felt freezing!

He got back on his feet and turned to face his enemies, resisting the urge to wrap his arms around himself to help fight off the cold, though by the irritating amused look on the Doctor's face, he wasn't fooled.

"What have you done?" it took Wesker a huge amount of effort not to let his teeth chatter as he spoke. He eyed the coats the others were wearing jealously.

"Well, if we went into details we'd be here all night, and if I'm not mistaken the nights here are very long indeed. All you really need to know is that I found a cure for your condition."

Wesker's ears perked up.

"What condition?" he snarled at the Doctor.

"Well, it seems you had a nasty virus in your system, but I managed to make a virus killer which I just introduced into your body, and I'm glad to say that you've made a full recovery."

Wesker didn't answer. He was thinking carefully, mentally considering the Doctor's words and his own physical state.

Finally, after much internal debate, he ventured "You mean I'm... human?"

"Correct!" the Doctor sounded delighted.

Wesker stayed still for a moment as he pondered the answer. Then he looked down at himself, noticing the lack of strength and ultra high perception he'd become familiar with.

Then he looked back at the Doctor, who was still smiling pleasantly.

"YOU BASTARD!" he exploded as he threw himself at the Doctor, catching hold of him and wringing his neck.

The Doctor made only a minor attempt to fend off his attacker, not overly worried by the fact his oxygen supply had been cut off. In fact, he even managed to squeeze some words out.

"It's over, _Wesker_; it's all over and done with."

This only enraged Wesker further. He took a wider grip on the Doctor's throat, hoping to snap his spinal column. Chris, however, had had enough. He took aim with his magnum, and fired.

For a split second, Wesker felt nothing except a small amount of confusion as his body suddenly felt off balance with the impact. Then the pain erupted from the wound. Wesker howled, partly out of pain, but mostly out of anger. He fell backwards as clutched his left leg. The shot had torn a gaping hole in the flesh and had cracked the bone. Muscles jerked involuntarily, and the skin around the entry point blistered and curled back from the heat of the bullet, even as Wesker clamped his hands over the injury.

"What was that for!" the outraged Doctor shouted right in Chris' face.

"Should I write a list!" Chris answered back.

"There was no need to shoot him! He can't do anything to hurt us and he's out numbered! What were you trying to achieve?"

Wesker took no notice as the men argued. He expected nothing better from Chris, and he had no interest in sympathy from the Doctor- if anything it disgusted him.

He searched through his pockets with one hand, hoping to find something to staunch the flow of blood with. As a B.O.W his body hadn't had many healing properties, but it was more effective than a standard human body. He didn't find anything to act as a bandage, but he did find a certain metal case, disguised as a cigarette case so that no one would guess what was actually inside.

'_Of course_!' Wesker thought to himself as he opened it. He still had one last ace up his sleeve; something he'd kept with him at all times just in case. It was a drastic step, but it was better than being taken back to America to face interrogation and execution.

Habitually, the Doctor had blown what was a minor dispute over the amount of restraint that should be used into a full scale debate of morality, so no one noticed Wesker taking the needle from the case and injecting himself with the purple substance until it was too late. For once, Wesker was grateful that the Doctor was so spineless when it came to firearms.

"Hey!" Rebecca exclaimed as she ran forward and swiped the empty syringe away, as though that might make up for their lack of observation.

"What was that?" Chris demanded, pointing at the discarded needle. Wesker only grinned.

"Nothing good, that's for sure." the Doctor said as he picked up the needle and smelt the tip. "Some sort of bio-organic substance kept fresh by a glucose based preservative, meaning the insulin in a subjects blood can break down the preservative quickly and allow infection to take place in a matter of seconds in spite of the extended period of being exposed to environments of unnecessary temperature and air impurity which could lead to the substance becoming an inoculation agent and decreasing the effects of a viral infection, because this is most certainly a viral weapon virus."

The Doctor looked at everyone to see if they were following. They weren't. Even Wesker had trouble keeping up with everything he said.

"_Sooo_..." Donna drawled out, stretching the 'o' to breaking point "what does any of that actually mean?"

"Well, nothing important. Albert's injected himself with another virus, not that it really matters- the D-virus gives immunity to the T-virus and _all_ variations. That won't make any difference."

Suddenly, Wesker felt his whole body jolt. His eyes began to vibrate painfully as they were the first to change. He knew they'd gone blood red.

"Then again..." the Doctor said uncertainly as they all noticed the change and backed away. Wesker laughed at them.

"So confident about your D-virus now, Doctor? This virus is more than a match for your so called cure- superior to the T-virus in every way!"

"What exactly have you injected yourself with?" the Doctor asked.

Wesker bared his teeth in a grin and said "G-virus."

The Survivors recoiled in fear, aiming any weapon they had left at the contaminated man. The Doctor and Donna simply looked confused.

"What the hell is it with these letter virus'!" Donna complained loudly "Does someone have an entire alphabet of disease!"

"Could someone tell me what the G-virus is?" asked the Doctor.

"A highly advanced brand of self isolating T-virus, with superior adaptive abilities brought on by high exposure to rival cell matter during testing." Wesker explained with a crafty look as he pushed himself up off the snow. "Strong enough to fight off the D-virus. All you efforts have failed."

"Self isolating...?" the Doctor thought to himself as Chris and Rebecca pulled him sharply away from Wesker, who by now was on his feet, whole body twitching as the G-virus polluted his body.

"If it isolates itself, that means it can avoid the antibodies and gene recognition chemical process. If it starts mutation then Wesker's cells become the battle ground of the virus', so..."

The Doctor's prattling trailed off, but was replacing but grunts and gurgles from Wesker as his flesh started to darken and his whole body quaked.

"He's changing!" Chris exclaimed in panic, bringing the revolver up again.

"Er, just a moment please!" the Doctor said in the tone of a man who'd only just realised there was something very, very wrong. He pushed Chris' gun arm out of the way and strode up to Wesker.

"Albert, I really think you'd better let me take a look at you."

"Look all you want, Doctor." Wesker said in a voice that had taken on a deep, snarling tone. "It'll be the last thing you ever see."

"No, I mean medically examine you- I've got a really bad feeling about how D-virus and G-virus are going to respond to each other."

Wesker's left arm shot out and grabbed the Doctor by the throat again. Chris let out a cry of protest and tried to target Wesker, but he moved the Doctor into the path of any bullet Chris might fire.

"Wesker," the Doctor said despite the pressure on his neck "If the G-virus starts to alter your cell structure, the D-virus will panic react and create lymphocyte cells to destroy any of you own cells that are infected with the G-virus. They'll eat your body from inside out!"

Wesker wasn't listening, only grinning in crazed triumph.

"Doctor, get away from him!" Donna hollered as she and the other Survivors formed a wary semi circle round the pair, unsure what to do.

Then Wesker gasped in pain and held his right arm up. Everyone's eyes were drawn to it. As they watched, it pulsated and throbbed as blood flowed thickly and fiercely through stretched veins, depositing viral cell matter at every point. The arm began to grow, ripping through what fabric was left from Wesker's ruined suit. The rest of the clothing on Wesker's upper body suffered the same fate as his chest expanded with new muscles. The limb swelled to twice it's original size, while the fingers and thumb shrank into stumps and the hand widen to accommodate the next part of the mutation. As they all watched, unable to act while the horrific event took place, three merciless claws, tinted beige like the colour of old bones, cut their way out of the flesh of what had been Wesker's hand just a few seconds ago. The talons pulled themselves up till each were nearly a metre long. Wesker folded his arm at the elbow so the claws pointed into the stunned Doctor's face.

"**Now**," Wesker rasped in a demonic voice "**you **_**die**_!"

There was a frantic yell or two from the people watching, the Doctor's eyes widen further as he saw his death approach, and Wesker savoured ever moment of it.

And then the claws fell out.

It was so unexpected that no one seemed to react. They all just stared at the cavities where the claws had just grown from, and then at the claws themselves, which appeared to be dissolving.

"... **What**!" Wesker asked, totally bewildered.

"I'm sorry."

Wesker looked at the Doctor in confusion. The Doctor sounded genuinely pained, and his expression was one of utmost pity.

"I'm so sorry, but there's nothing I can do."

The Doctor pulled himself free of Wesker's grip and stepped back. Wesker tried to go after him again, but his whole body was in the grip of change at a genetic level, and all of a sudden he found that he was barely able to move.

"I didn't want the D-virus to be used like this, but you brought this upon yourself."

Wesker looked to the Doctor for an explanation, but there was none forthcoming. The Doctor just stood and watched as the transformation began to take place

* * *

The Doctor tried to comfort himself with the thought that once this was over, it was over for good. It did little to help him. He'd tried so hard to stop the viral weapons and prevent any more deaths, and now it came down to this.

"What's happening, Doctor?" Donna came to the Time Lord's side and gave voice to everyone's question.

"It's like I said," the Doctor began as he put his hands on Donna's shoulders and moved both of them back a few more steps; he knew she wasn't going to like the next few moments "the D-virus is trying to prevent infection, but the G-virus has managed to avoid it and has started mutating Albert's cells, which in turn start creating more G-virus, like miniature clone factories. The only thing the D-virus can do to stop the rate of infection is to destroy cells already poisoned by the G-virus until adaptive genes or antibodies can destroy the G-virus itself. And since the G-virus is avoiding contacting with the D-virus adaptive genes and antibodies, more and more of Albert's cells are being mutated so the process can't be stopped.

Wesker garbed frantic, possibly raging at the Doctor or calling for help, but his voice was as twisted and damaged as his flesh. His skin looked as though he'd been bruised all over; random parts of his body were quivering like jelly. Then Wesker's cheeks ballooned out, and a huge, slobbering, forked tongue erupted from his mouth, flailing around of it's own accord. The arm which had previously been equipped with the elongated nails began to warp out of shape, skin peeling away from it. Next thing, all the skin on Wesker's body began to shrivel and peel off, leaving his body red raw and dripping with blood and plasma.

Then the blood began to harden to form a crimson exoskeleton, but it soon cracked and fell to the snow in pieces like a shattered mirror. Now the flesh was sagging off Wesker's bones in a revolting fashion. Wesker tried to cry out in agony, but was cut off as the left side of his face seemed to melt into his shoulder. He struggled to pull free, but could only just turn his face slightly. His left arm twitched as he tried to raise it to pull his head loose, but the arm too had blended into the side of his body. The right arm was beyond use, by now swollen till it was nearly as big as Wesker's whole body. The flesh had stopped growing, but the bone had failed to accommodate, increasing in size till it cut open the elbow, spraying blood and titbits meat to steam in the frigid air.

As revolting as it was, the worst was yet to come.

From the widened gap between Wesker's head and right arm, a shape began to grow. The oval mass took up position on top of Wesker's body, gaps in it tearing open in such a way that it could only mean one thing. As the ball began to take a proper from, muscles began to stand out, reaching from the shape to the right arm, forcing the flesh on the forearm to grow again till it was even more disproportionately wide. Wesker managed to pull against his melted jaw and look over at what was happening, just in time for the shape on top to finish growing so that he could see what it was. With a leering mouth, lizard eyes and bony skull there was no denying what it was- it was the head of the G-virus monster.

Face to face with this new nightmare, Wesker couldn't control himself anymore. He screamed in blind terror, to which the monster head answered in the same way, albeit in a far more freakish and guttural manner.

Wesker fought wildly as though he could pull himself free of his treacherous body. As he writhed, his legs began to mutate too. The right bulged horribly and bent in places it shouldn't have been able to. The left leg seemed to twist in such a way that the bullet wound left by Chris was torn even wider, until the lower part of the leg from that point burst open. Wesker fell back onto the snow, his destroyed leg being pulled up by the force of a myriad of tentacles that squiggled about madly. Another bursting of flesh followed, this time from Wesker's stomach as two club like arms fought their way free of the constricting flesh. What appeared to be crude wings worked their way out from Wesker's back, flapping uselessly before they withered and fell. The extra long tongue that whipped from Wesker's now misshaped maw turned black and fell out onto Wesker's chest, and the huge mass of flesh on the right arm stretched open to reveal a gigantic, yellowish eye.

The sick display continued, with more unnecessary organs growing free of barren flesh, only to die as they were corrupted from within. After another minute of torment it was over.

Wesker's form resembled nothing more than a lump of dried up, bruise-purple flesh, with a single, oversized eyeball glaring around in horror induced insanity.

* * *

It was about twenty minutes after the incident before they'd all recovered, or at least, recovered as much as possible after taking part in such a vile experience. Donna was certain she'd yet to see anything so awful in all her life.

Fortunately, it had ended there. The thing that was supposed to be Wesker had quickly expired, if indeed it had been still alive anyway. Chris had burnt what he could with plane fuel Rebecca had scrounged up from the storage sheds of the blown up research base, and the Doctor had helped to bury it.

While they talked about what would happen next, Donna decided she was fed up of moping around. She got and from where she sat against the side of the plane and started trudging across the snow.

"Hold on; don't you want to know what the results are?" Rebecca asked as she stuck her head out of the door. Inside the plane, Rebecca had been carrying out a simple blood test, at the Doctor's request, to make sure all the rejected virus matter had been removed from Donna's system. With a bit of clever work from the Doctor's sonic screwdriver and the last dreg of enhanced first aid spray, a drop of Donna's blood had been added to the medicine to see if it would react to any leftover virus.

"I'm not gonna hang around being tense waiting to see if a homemade chemistry experiment is going to react. That's what pregnancy tests are for."

It wasn't the best sarcastic comment she could have made, Donna noted, but with everything that had happened within the last couple of hours she didn't care what she said. Rebecca was far too preoccupied with her own thoughts as well. She gave a slight smile and ducked back into the plane to check the test.

Donna wandered over to where Claire had opted to sit alone to collect her thoughts. From where she sat, she had a clear view of the burning laboratory.

"You okay?"

Claire looked up and nodded. She smiled; it seemed slightly forced but Donna had a feeling the girl was glad of some company. She sat down in the snow next to her.

"I'm glad you're alright." Claire said. "When we realised Wesker infected you I really thought you were going to die."

"Nah, not me." Donna grinned. "Take a lot more than blondie to bring me down."

Claire snorted a laugh at the nickname. Donna smiled.

"Dunno what the hell my mum's going to say about this, though." she said as she tried to move her hair so that it covered the vampire-like teeth marks in her neck. "Do you still have that hairpin I gave you?"

Claire raised an eyebrow, then reached into her pocket. She produced the hairpin that had allowed them to escape Wesker's clutches. It was bent out of shape and beyond any possible use. Donna gave it a very dry look.

"Keep it. You can have it as a memento."

Claire gave a small, amused smile as Donna abandoned her fiery locks.

"So," Donna said, this time in a more serious but also delicate tone "are you going to be alright"

Claire looked sadly towards the ruins of the hidden lab.

"I think so." she said without any degree of certainty or believability. "I s'pose it was better than I really expected it to be."

Donna looked confused, but Claire went on to explain.

"I didn't think Steve was still alive. I thought if I did see him it'd be just his body, or as a monster that we'd have to destroy."

She looked at Donna. There were a fresh pair of tears in her eyes, and it nearly broke Donna's heart to see them.

"But I got to see him again, and he was able to die as a human; even after what that damn virus did to him!"

Claire looked away as her emotions threatened to overflow. Donna moved closer and placed her arm round her shoulders. Claire looked back at her intensely.

"And he _was_ still human; you heard the way he talked to us before he died. He gave up his life to save us. He was still a human, not a monster."

"I know, Claire. I know." Donna said sympathetically, cutting the younger woman off before her feelings made her too excitable. She seemed to need to hear Donna agree with her about Steve's restored humanity, which Donna truly did. No monster would have done for them what he did.

"He's a hero, Claire. A real hero."

Claire made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and reached up to place her own arm on Donna's shoulders. Donna excepted the comforting gesture silently.

Their conversation came to a halt. They seemed content just to watch the burning facility that served as Steve's funeral pyre for as long as they could.

* * *

The Doctor smiled proudly at where Donna sat comforting Claire. She really had no idea what a Godsend she was.

Chris was still at the depressing little grave they'd made for Wesker. He wanted some time alone, and the Doctor couldn't blame him. Seeing the man who betrayed you and brought about the death of many close friends and thousands of innocent people die is such a horrible way was bound to do something to you, though the Doctor doubted he trying to make peace with his former captain- more than likely he was giving thanks that he was finally dead.

The Doctor pushed the thoughts from his mind and continued towards the plane. As he got closer, Rebecca came out to meet him.

"Hey Doctor. Where's Chris?"

"He's still at Albert's grave. He wants a bit of time to himself- has that test finished yet?"

"Yep, just done." she presented to him a piece of brown paper which was usually used to hold powdered medicines and herbs. In the centre was a soggy patch of something unidentifiable.

"Checked out okay- Donna's clean." Rebecca handed to it the Doctor as he'd asked her to once she was done with it. He'd told her he wanted to do some tests of his own when they got back home. Of course, he just wanted to make sure none of Donna's genetic code was left lying around in a parallel world.

The Doctor pocketed it. He turned to survey the landscape, just making one last check that everything was alright; no escaped monsters on the loose or anything. Rebecca looked around too, before she spoke again.

"I still can't believe what happened to Wesker. Something like that, I could almost feel sorry for him."

"Hmm." replied the Doctor, unimpressed with the 'almost', but he ignored it. "Cellular degeneration. I tried that once- not very nice."

Rebecca looked at him with a raised eyebrow. The Doctor noticed it and shrugged, saying "Of course I didn't go through the mutation stage, but it still hurt."

"You really are mad, you know?"

"Oh, yes. Absolutely."

The Doctor gave a cheeky grin. Rebecca chuckled lightly, then sighed.

"I'm surprised we haven't all gone mad after all this. Talk about biting off more than you can chew."

"Oh I dunno." the Doctor said thoughtfully. "You seemed to handle yourself pretty well."

"Like when?"

"Finding that spare elevator and allowing everyone to get out alive." the Doctor's grin took on a marginally smug quality. "Told you you'd make a better life saver than a life ender."

"Oh please, not that again." Rebecca laughed.

"I'm serious!" persisted the Doctor. "I just don't think you're cut out for the life of a soldier. Why not try and get into medicine. You've still got your whole life ahead of you."

"Now you're starting to sound like my dad."

"Go on. Please? For me?"

Rebecca frowned as the Doctor gave her some very irritating puppy dog eyes.

"I guess I could look into it."

"Do. I really could see you as a doctor."

"Well, if I'm anything like you then no way."

They enjoyed a small moment of laughter at that.

"But seriously, don't you think you like something like that? You've certainly got the brains for it."

"True," Rebecca said with an airy confidence that was more common with Donna's personality. "I ended collage with some of the highest grades."

"Impressive. Which, in fact reminds me-" the Doctor reached into his inside pocket and took out the psychic paper. "-could you look at this and tell me if you see anything?"

Bemused, Rebecca looked carefully as the Doctor opened the plastic flap and displayed the paper. She looked at him.

"There's nothing there. It's just a blank bit of paper."

The Doctor beamed as though she'd just announced it was a winning lottery ticket.

"Why, what is it?"

"Nothing; nothing at all." the Doctor put the paper away, still smiling. "Me and Donna are going to be off in a minute, but before we go, I'd just like to say it's been a pleasure meeting you."

He held out his arms an enveloped her in a large hug. Rebecca responded with surprise, before returning the hug, and then pushing free of the Doctor.

"Hey, don't get any ideas; you're way too old for me." she said with an amused smile.

The Doctor sighed and shook his head.

'_Even the __genii__ all think the same way_.'

"Besides, how are we supposed to leave? There isn't enough gas for the plane."

"The Doctor's already thought of that."

They both turned and saw Chris had rejoined them.

"We just wait here for the reinforcements that Leon called. They'll take us back to America and will probably want to question us. We'll just tell them we came here, rigged the missiles to blow and managed to trap Wesker in a B.O.W storage case before we escaped. We say we have no idea what the blob of meat in the snow is; we just found it dumped there so we burnt and buried it."

"I thought you said Leon had sent a message to the government telling them what had been going on here?" Donna asked as she and Claire also joined them.

"He would only have said where to find the base. No experienced agent would send exact mission details over an insecure network."

"Right," agreed the Doctor "the only thing we need to worry about is that he told them to be on the look out for me-"

"And why not me as well?" Donna interrupted indignantly.

"-so all you need to do is say you noticed someone else running around in there but they steered clear of you most of the time. I'll hack into some government files later and leave some info to make them think I'm some sort of mercenary whose done stuff like this before. They'll never believe that I was working with you."

"You're just going to hack into some of the most secure computer systems on the earth, simple as that?" Claire asked doubtfully.

"Believe me, it will be as simple as that." Donna assured her.

"But where are you two going to go?"

"Oh don't worry." Donna said. "We've got...er..."

"Er... yeah." the Doctor joined in. "Well, we wouldn't get on with the authorities so we've got a... sort of, arrangement."

"We've got a ride out of here, but there's only really enough room for two."

The Doctor looked at Donna and raised an eyebrow.

"Doctor, I know I've already asked but I've just gotta know- who are you two?" Chris said.

"Honestly Chris, we've just a pair of travellers in the wrong place at the right time."

Chris scowled while the Doctor just smiled.

"Well, whoever you are, guess this is goodbye."

" 'fraid so." the Doctor held out his hand. "Good luck Chris Redfield."

"You too, Doctor." Chris said as he accepted the handshake with his huge grip.

Within a couple of minutes, the Doctor and Donna had said their goodbyes to the Survivors and had made their way back to the TARDIS.

"Right then," said the Doctor as he came through the doorway "best get out of here before they get too nosey and come to see where we've gone. First of all though," he started zooming round the TARDIS console, pressing buttons, flicking switches and striking one panel with a mallet, which promptly burst into flames as a form of protest. The Doctor quickly grabbed a fire extinguisher. "Just need to make sure the atmosphere manipulation is working properly. Want to make sure the D-virus evaporates properly. In a few weeks the whole world should have caught it."

"Couldn't you have just melted all that snow with the TARDIS?" Donna asked as she kept a safe distance from the chaos of the Doctor's piloting operations. "I mean, all that stuff with the missiles and knocking down the walls; bit unnecessary wasn't it?"

"Well yes, but that would involve dropping the TARDIS through the earth's atmosphere in a massive ball of flames which would indeed evaporate five times more snow and ice but would also result in a tidal wave that would drown Scotland."

"Oh..."

The Doctor went on messing with the TARDIS.

"So," said Donna, "with all this mutating stuff that's been put in me today, am I still actually human."

The Doctor looked up sharply and said "Well... Let me think. Probably about as much as you were to start with..."

"Oi!" she threatened.

"Give or take a DNA strand or two." the Doctor went on. "You're officially an enhanced human, with an extra few hundred or so cells kicking around in your blood, and maybe a stray chromosome; at a cellular level that is."

"Alright. And what about at the normal, English talking level?" Donna said with a tone of foreboding.

The Doctor smiled warmly at her and said "The same as ever you were."

Donna replied with a smile of relief.

"Though it'd be interesting to see what would happen if you were struck by lightning."

Donna frowned distastefully and absentmindedly circled the TARDIS console while the Doctor prepared for takeoff. As she looked deep into the powerful time vortex column she said "Why _did_ Albert do all this?"

The Doctor was confident of the answer.

"Pride." he said disapprovingly. "In the end I think he just wanted to prove he could do it. He must have spent so much of his life working on his virus research it was all that mattered to him. I don't think he really wanted to rule the whole world; he just wanted to show he was smarter than everybody else."

"How could he have done all that just so he could prove a point?"

"Well you heard what he said- revolutionise the entire world. Only interested in the big picture. Some people just can't understand how important singular, individual, living beings really are."

The Doctor's thoughts wandered back to the Survivors.

Rebecca, better suited to saving people than killing them, fighting out of an obligation to do her part for the world, and now promising to look for a new path in life.

Claire, who'd come all this way just for a chance to say goodbye to the one she loved.

And Chris, the man who the Doctor and worked with, and simultaneously fought a battle of wills with.

"Fortunately, some people can"

Donna noticed the more optimistic tone of voice, and knew who he was talking about.

"Do you think they'll be alright? I mean, after everything they've been through..."

"Of course they will- they've got each other. When humans aren't trying to find reasons to fight amongst themselves, which is rare I'll admit, they're good at sticking with those close to them."

The Doctor struck the previously burning panel with a mallet. A rusty squawk belched from somewhere under the floor grating, and the TARDIS shuddered.

"What about you?" the Doctor asked Donna in the voice he used when he was talking about something very delicate but wanted to try and pretend it wasn't such a big deal. "You're not going to have nightmares or anything, are you?"

"Course not." Donna said brightly, giving the Doctor a winning smile. "Them three have got each other, and I've got you."

The Doctor's head snapped away from his work to look at Donna in mild shock. Then his face split into a wide smile.

"That's probably one of the nicest things you've ever said to me." he declared.

"Well don't let it go to your head, space boy!" Donna instantly got her attitude back again. "I still haven't forgiven you for letting me get captured by old Blondie and then doing a disappearing act for hours on end. Plus, you owe me for saving your life several times."

The Doctor's eyebrows lowered as he went through a run down of their most recent adventure in his head.

"Actually, I don't think you saved me at any point today." he dared to suggest, earning the evil eye from Donna. He quickly added "But we've got plenty of time to discuss it. I'm thinking we could do with a break."

"_That_, is probably one of the _smartest_ things you've ever said to me." Donna immediately brightened up.

"And I know just the place- Lovit. The entire northern hemisphere of the planet is a vacational relaxation resort, and I've still got a nova class pass card. Oh I do hope Zelda is still doing the massages there."

Before Donna could demand "Whose Zelda when she's at home!" the Doctor slammed the engines into full power, and the TARDIS took off for the hole in reality that had led them there.

* * *

Chris sat forward in the pilot seat of the small plane that had brought them there, arms folded over the yoke. Claire sat in the seat next to him fast asleep, emotionally exhausted from the nights events. Rebecca was outside, having volunteered to take the first watch for any approaching transports. They still had some apprehension over being questioned about what had gone on in the lab, but they been through it before, and there was no reason for anyone to think that any of them had the knowledge to understand any B.O.W research data they might have seen.

Chris' thoughts where focussed on the Doctor and Donna. In spite of everything, it was unlikely that any of them would have made it out alive without their help. Chris knew there was something strange about them, but still couldn't bring himself to believe that it had been an act all along and the two strangers were working for someone with an interest in B.O.W research. He'd considered following them to see how exactly they planned to escape from the icy wastes, but in the end he decided he didn't really want to know.

Claire shifted restlessly in her sleep. She whined slightly, apparently in the grip of distressing dreams. Chris moved over to her and touched her shoulder gently.

"Claire?" he whispered cautiously. "Claire?"

The younger Redfield sibling suddenly woke up. She looked around bleary eyed and spotted Chris.

"You okay sis?"

After a moment's pause she said "I dreamt about Steve."

Chris knew better than to try and think of something to say. He put his arm round his younger sister and pulled her so that she rested her head on his shoulder.

"Where d'you think Doctor and Donna are?" she mumbled.

Chris looked out the cockpit window into the steadily brightening, snow swept landscape.

"No idea. Probably far from here by now."

"Glad we met them. They're good people."

"Yeah. They are Claire." Chris smiled. "Go back to sleep."

As Claire returned to a more peaceful slumber, it suddenly occurred to Chris that he hadn't thanked the strange pair. Never thanked the Doctor for destroying the Union virus. Never thanked Donna for looking out for his sister. Never thanked either of them for just being there in the first place. And at the same time they'd looked for no thanks or any sort of reward for all they'd done- just left when they became superfluous.

He supposed they'd never see either of them again. He'd regret that, he knew, but in the end it'd probably be for the best. Now more than ever he needed to think about moving on with his life and burying the past. The efforts of the Doctor and Donna had finally made it possible.

As the sun began to rise majestically from the distant horizon, Chris said quietly "Thank you Doctor, and Donna."

Watching the sun rise, Chris caught a glimpse of something that looked like a dark blue shooting star streak across the sky. He moved his head slightly to get a proper look at it, but before he could take it in, there was what appeared to be a small flash of orange light, and the object was gone.

_The End_

* * *

_**In case you didn't realise, I really hate Wesker.**_

_**Thanks for reading this fic, and hoped you enjoyed it. Please leave a review. Flames accepted, though I would prefer constructive criticism so I know how to do better in future.**_

_**Incidentally**__**, although I haven't planned when or if I'm going to write anymore Doctor Who crossovers, I have several ideas in the pipeline for the future. I have made a short review of each one here. If you'd like to see more Doctor Who crossovers, please tell me in your review, and also say if you have any preference as to which you'd prefer to read first (all of these fics would feature the tenth Doctor and Donna Noble)**_

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Ultimate Upgrade

Ironman crossover

As they travel through the chaos if time and space, the Doctor and Donna encounter another hole in reality. On the other side of the breach, they discover themselves in the world of Ironman. Tony Stark is a man burdened with the responsibility of the hero Ironman; a responsibility too great for him to bare alone. The Doctor and his companion have only limited time to convince Tony Stark to help them as an old enemy of the Doctor and humanity alike has returned. The Cybermen have escaped from the void. Tenacious as ever, the steel-bodied behemoths make plans not only to get their hands on the limitless power source that keeps the business tycoon alive, but also to upgrade themselves further with something that even Cybermen can tolerate- the Ironman suit.

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Masquerade

Phantom of the Opera (film) crossover

Through another hole in reality, Donna and the Doctor find themselves in Paris 1881, where the Opéra Populaire is under threat from the mysterious 'Opera Ghost'. It seems like a case in which the assistance of the travelling duo is not required, but as time goes on it becomes clear that all is not what it seems. Soon, the Doctor and Donna find themselves at odds with each other when they realise there is only one possible explanation to the Phantom's twisted mentality and hypnotic voice- a parallel version of one of the Doctor's most dangerous enemies. It's the return... of the Midnight Entity.

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Fun House

Batman: Arkham Asylum crossover

The Daleks have been defeated, the planets restored to their rightful place, the children of time have picked up the threads of their old lives, and the Doctor is alone again.

While working to seal up holes in reality made the reality bomb's influence in worlds with faster time streams, the TARDIS is pulled off course into a parallel universe. Temporarily stranded in Arkham Asylum as a full scale riot erupts, the Doctor is determined not to get involved with the goings on of this other world. But that soon changes as the Doctor sees a grim reflection of himself in the Joker, and finds a chance to alleviate his guilt when he intercepts a distress message from an old friend.

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_**Thanks for **__**your time. And remember- keep reading! :D**_


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